


Amalgamate Part III

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [53]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe within an Alternate Universe, Dying whale noises, F/F, F/M, GFY, M/M, Multi, Politics, Sith Obi-Wan, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:44:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8747479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: "This is the time for treatise, for essays, for the spirit of the educated being to press words into paper, so that the cusp that we stand upon will not be forgotten.Write it down. Write it all down, lest it’s forgotten, lest our words and ideals, purposes and truths be twisted by those who come after us.The time is coming, soon, where the time for writing will be temporarily suspended, because it will be time to act.We don’t yet know what those actions will be, but it’s coming.Write it all.”—Senator Padmé Amidala, 140th session of the Galactic Senate, 5212





	

**Author's Note:**

> On the advice of Awesome!Beta Norcumi, there's a trigger warning. Not torture, but some folks might find it upsetting. If you are worried about that kind of thing, see the Notes at the end for details.
> 
> This chapter's been a long time in the making; most of it was already in raw form months back. It was nice to finally get it all together. Also, I had a LOT of plot to wrap up to be able to move on to the next parts, so there is...no, there is too much, even just to sum it up.
> 
> As usual in a time-travel fic: Watch the dates (here there be a flashback).

Imperial Year 20, 10/28th

Port of Great Mercy, Ord Varee, Mid-Rim

 

It was supposed to be a meeting with a pre-vetted Alliance contact, some former Imperial officer who’d turned to smuggling and spying after dealing with too much slaughter under Vader, Tarkin, and the rest of the Imperial lineup of nutcases. Tano called everyone in, explained the situation, and announced that she thought it was time for a team effort.

“First time you’ve asked for one of those since that shit with Vader went down. I wasn’t there for that, and even I know it was a disaster,” Wolffe said.

“Didn’t think you wanted to chance it, since last time you had to pretend to be _dead_ again to get out of it,” Rex added.

Tano rolled her eyes. “It was only for six months, and I thought I _was_ going to die, Rex! I didn’t see the point of dragging everyone down with me.”

“Be less superficial,” Gregor said sternly.

“I think I actually understood that!” Ezra beamed. “You mean she knows better now, right?”

Gregor nodded, and Ahsoka smiled. “Yes, I know better now, and I understand that more people at my back means I don’t have to run and hide in gutters. What do you say, guys? Together again?”

Kanan and Hera glanced at each other. “I’m not opposed,” Syndulla granted them, but she was fighting a smile. “It could be fun.”

“Anything is fun as long as I get to shoot every Imp I see,” Orrelios announced.

“Everyone _except_ the ex-Imperial, please,” Tano cautioned, and that was why they were standing in a run-down cantina in Ord Varee’s southern capital of Great Mercy, which was a stupid name for a port. The cantina was a dark, hole-in-the-wall sort of dive, complete with dirty glasses and questionable alcohol. Except for their group and the contact, customers were all but nonexistent—which should have been a giant, screaming clue. Clandestine meetings were held in noisy, crowded places. Made it easier to hide.

The Spectres had arrived earlier, posing as customers for the cantina as they formed a subtle, protective ring around the place where Ahsoka would meet their contact. Wolffe, Gregor, and Rex came in with Fulcrum, playing the obvious muscle that guarded her back. They looked like such a mismatched set, too. Wolffe was in his Wolfpack steel gray over black, two solid blocks of color. Rex had his 501st blue armor scored with one hundred forty-four jagged lines, revealing the black underneath. Gregor’s black armor was topped by panels of deep, burnished red, and over the red was a silvery-gray replica of a dragonfly’s iridescent wings.

Wolffe covered the door, with Rex and Gregor bracketing him on either side. They were armed to the teeth; the Spectres were wary and alert. Fulcrum was in anonymous mode, cloaked and using her vocal modulator as she tried to coax their contact into being more fucking cooperative. For a vetted spy, Arrun Hux was being an overbearing pain in the ass.

Gregor was finger-tapping along his rifle, the sound like distant, muted falling rain. He claimed it kept his thoughts straight in his head during long waits with nothing to shoot at. Rex didn’t understand why it helped, but for some reason, Wolffe did.

As the meeting dragged on, Rex shifted in place, trying to relieve the ache in his knees. Damn, but getting old was terrible, and no one deserved to have to go through this shit. Rex knew it was one of the reasons why Tano kept looking at them like she wanted to ask them about retirement. She wouldn’t; she knew it would be a pointless question. Rex couldn’t see himself retiring; Gregor would get bored and backslide again; Wolffe gave no fucks about aching joints as long as he got to keep destroying large parts of the Empire, either by blaster shot or by his information network, a group of carefully cultivated spies Wolffe had started grooming for the job before the war ended.

Maybe it happened because they’d all been running their own missions, doing their own work, and it was exhausting shit. The Alliance was strapped for capable personnel. Their three distinct groups had been run off their asses for at least two years at that point. Things were ramping up on the Imperial side, but nobody knew why. They just understood that whatever it was couldn’t be any fucking good at all.

It was a moot point, anyway. None of them noticed that something was wrong until the door was blown in.

Rex was lying on his side when awareness jolted back in. He checked the HUD display to find he’d only been out for a few seconds. He lifted his head from the ground and gave it a quick shake, then looked up to find that the cantina no longer had a door. Sunlight was streaming through the new, enlarged doorway, and flames were still licking along the edges of the walls.

His heart clenched in his chest in painful realization. Wolffe had been standing in front of the door.

Before Rex could roll over to find him, Jarrus yelled, “I’ve got him!”

Rex turned just in time to see Jarrus hauling Wolffe out of the sudden line of fire. He had a bad moment, certain that Wolffe was dead, until he saw his brother’s hand clamp down on Jarrus’s arm. Good enough for now, and it sure as hell gave Rex the excuse to turn around and start firing at the Imperials trying to rush the doorway.

“It’s a damned trap!” Rex barked.

“We figured that out, thanks!” Orrelios retorted over the din of blaster fire and the small cluster of screaming cantina patrons. “We need to get out of here!”

“And go where?” Wren asked caustically. She was firing through the smoke hanging in the air, nailing stormtroopers like the dumb bastards were lining up in a shooting gallery. Once the first wave of Imps were dead, they got blaster bolts instead of fresh troops, and none of them were stun level.

“We go out the back!” Bridger winced when a blast came close enough to singe his hair. “Dammit. Call it, Kanan!”

“No flashy heroics!” Jarrus yelled back, their code phrase that warned everyone not to reveal themselves as Jedi. Not unless they had no choice.

Rex refused to let it get that bad. He armed a thermal detonator, one of a set he carried everywhere. He’d been caught without them once, learning that lesson the hard way. Fucking Ruuria.

Orrelios ducked another blaster shot. “There isn’t a back door to this rothole!”

“There’s about to be one.” Rex tossed the detonator at the back wall. “Might wanna duck.”

Gregor was laughing as they all hit the floor. Anyone who didn’t know Rex’s brother would think he was insane. They’d be right, but it wasn’t that kind of insanity. Not that kind of laughter. Combat just brought out the best in Gregor.

The second explosion should damned well provide enough encouragement to keep Imps from flooding the cantina. The building was emitting a faint, stressed whine, and the walls were cracking. Rex shook his head as he got back to his feet, rifle back in his hands and prepared to fire. Time was when you could blow a chunk out of a building and know it was still going to be standing in fifty years.

 _Move, quickly,_ Fulcrum sent. Her hands were shoving aside a piece of duracrete that had fallen from the ceiling. It was too heavy to move without the Force, but Kanan had called it—no flashy heroics. Fulcrum did it on the sly; the few patrons left in the cantina wouldn’t notice.

“Where the hell is our contact?” Bridger shouted, his left hand supporting his right wrist as he helped Rex and Wren fire through the doorway. They kept the Imps back as Syndulla and Jarrus escaped through the cantina’s new back door.

“I dunno.” Gregor kicked over a table to give them more cover. “Should’ve hung the painting.”

 _Should have stuck around._ “Yeah. Fucking impolite of him to have buggered off,” Rex said.

“Come on!” Fulcrum motioned towards the literal dark hole in the wall. “Jarrus will be making the next door in about thirty seconds.”

“Go,” Rex ordered Gregor as he pulled his second detonator out. “I’ll be right behind you. Just want to make sure the bastards hang back a bit longer.”

Gregor nodded, but he waited until Wren and Bridger ducked out before he followed them. Rex didn’t need to see Fulcrum’s face to know she was giving him an impatient look. Rex rolled the detonator instead of throwing it; stormtroopers had a bad habit of not paying attention to their feet. The explosion painted the inside of the cantina a wavering, belligerent orange.

“That should discourage them,” Fulcrum admitted, amused, before she ducked into their escape hole when Rex waved for her to go first.

The burst of pain in Rex’s back was a complete surprise. He stumbled forward, almost falling face-first through the hole and onto the duracrete of the enclosed space on the other side. No doors or windows—probably just structural support for the weight above them.

Fulcrum grasped him around the chest. “Rex!”

“I’m all right,” Rex told her through gritted teeth. It was a blatant lie and they both knew it. Some Imp’s lucky blaster shot had nailed him high in the back, right between the plates of his armor. He was down a lung and tasting blood, but he could still move.

“I’ve got your back,” Fulcrum said, her tone telling Rex that arguing would be pointless. “Hand it over.”

Rex straightened, cursing under his breath, before he gave her his rifle. “Hope you’ve been practicing,” he said as he pulled his twin blaster pistols.

Fulcrum’s digitized voice didn’t hide her smugness. “I don’t need to practice. Jarrus, the door!”

“Got it!” Jarrus exclaimed, pulling his lightsaber free. Orrelios used his shoulder to shove the duracrete piece out of the way, letting it fall with a muted thump onto the ground outside. They climbed out, one after another. Rex’s helmet automatically adjusted for the change from darkness to too-bright sunlight.

Bridger turned around, and his eyes widened. “You’re hurt!”

“I’ll live,” Rex said, lifting his helmet just enough to spit out a mouthful of blood. “Wolffe?”

“Godsdamned kriffing son of a whore-blooded monkey lizard on a fucking stick!”

“He’s tickled,” Gregor commented.

“This way.” Wren and Orrelios took the lead. They skirted down another side alley that branched off of the one they’d started from, all eyes alert for places to gain some fucking height.

It should have been an easy damned escape. It wasn’t the first time they’d dealt with betrayal, and the Spectres had perfected running from the Imps while Rex, Wolffe, and Gregor were still roaming Seelos’s barren landscape, playing their part as an active and mobile Alliance waystation.

It wasn’t. Instead, trying to get out of Great Mercy was an actual fucking nightmare.

The port was flooded with stormtroopers. It wasn’t the grunts sent out as cannon fodder, either. These were the professionals, the battered soldiers who’d been upholding Imperial tyranny for years. Special forces, the bloodthirsty tacticians and assassins.

“They knew it was us. All of us. They knew,” Jarrus panted out as they ran, his teeth bared in anger. Blood was oozing from a cut that stretched from his forehead and into his hair, a gift from a chip of stone that was blown off of a building by a lucky blaster strike.

“They did pull out all the stops,” Fulcrum agreed, sounding only a touch less winded than Jarrus. “Hera?”

Syndulla took a moment to shoot the Imp that rounded the corner behind them. “If I lift her now, they’ll be on her. We don’t have a clear way out, Fulcrum!”

“We need factions,” Gregor said, and then made a frustrated sound.

“The idea of splitting up the group right now makes me nervous,” Jarrus responded.

They waited until they were in the shade of a building. Pursuit hadn’t found them again yet, but Rex thought the Imps would be on them in less than a minute.

“I think we have to,” Bridger said, trading a look with Fulcrum. Bridger always had a good feel for the crowd, and Fulcrum had more training in reading the Force, looking at possible outcomes.

Rex had to smash all of their potential plans to bits. There was a hell of a lot more at stake than just their lives. “You have to survive,” Rex growled. “You’re a ranking member of the Alliance, and there are no damned Jedi left aside from you three. We’re just fucking cell mates in comparison. Even if it means the rest of us die, you three _have_ to get off this planet alive!”

Fulcrum would be aware of that already. She was just frustrated by the immediate agreement on every other face. “I want no sacrifices—”

“But you might need them, so shut the hell up, Commander,” Wolffe bit out. “Some of us are already dying, and we’ll take every single fucking Imp we can with us. Hera Syndulla, please rescue these three idiots while the rest of us get the Empire’s attention.”

“We can’t—” Fulcrum tried again, while Bridger and Wren stared at each other. If they both survived and didn’t fall right into bed together, Rex was going to be very surprised.

“Now, Commander!” Rex ordered, and Fulcrum jerked in place before bowing her head in agreement. “Fucking move your asses!”

Rex waited until the four of them were off. “Wren. None of us will blame you for going with them.”

Wren reached up, steadying her helmet, before she re-armed herself with both blasters. “No I can’t, because you’re right, Rex. Let’s make these bastards regret the day they chose to come to Ord Varee.”

“Ready to dance,” Gregor added. Rex didn’t think Gregor had garbled that one. They’d all been pretty good at dancing, once upon a time, as long as blasters and battle droids were involved.

“Fuck all this for a fucking lark.” Wolffe grunted as Orrelios slung Wolffe’s arm over his shoulders to keep him upright and steady. “Rex?”

Rex spat out another mouthful of blood and hefted both blasters. “Ready.”

Wren nodded and looked at Gregor. “Mayhem and property damage?”

“Mayhem and property damage,” Gregor repeated, some old code the two of them had worked out a few years ago. Damned if Rex knew what it meant aside from the obvious.

It wasn’t hard to get the Empire’s attention and keep it focused on them. The stormtroopers were so intent on killing the hell out of the five of them that they didn’t seem to notice that four of their targets were missing.

They got by with only two more injuries, but those were damning enough. Wren was muttering under her breath in Mando’a, a non-stop litany of complaints that of all the places to shoot her, they chose her painting arm? Orrelios was limping but refusing to let it stop him. His grip on Wolffe never wavered, despite the blood that was starting to stain his clothes and arm. Rex knew he was watching Wolffe bleed out before his eyes, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Hell—so was he.

Wren refused to let a crippled arm stop her from putting down the same amount of Imps she’d been killing with two blasters. She was Mando’ade to the core, and she wasn’t going to let anyone forget it. Gods, Rex loved her, and cranky Orrelios, and both of his brothers. Rex would gladly die for all of them if it kept them safe.

He knew what Fulcrum would say—that it was easy to die for people, and harder to live for them. Fulcrum could quote her dead grandmaster all she liked, but Rex had spent most of his life fighting. Sometimes it really did come down to sacrifice, whether she liked it or not.

They made it to the edge of the port settlement before Rex started getting dizzy from blood loss. It made his aim shaky, but there were so many stormtroopers that it was harder _not_ to hit one of the bastards.

Another rush pinned them in a house that was already half-bombed out. It was old damage, probably from the Clone Wars; the broken edges of the walls and ceiling were rounded by time. Unlike the stupid cantina, the structure was still sound.

The old walls wouldn’t save them. It just delayed the inevitable, but it was a delay that gave the others that much more time to escape. None of them could go back outside without stepping right into death from dozens of blaster wounds; if they tried to go out the rear, they’d be easy pickings for snipers.

Orrelios dropped his smoking, overheated blaster rifle to the ground, pulling his bo-rifle out but not charging it up. “Miserable place for a last stand.”

Wren climbed up on a pile of rubble to peer out of a window that was missing most of its transparisteel. “They haven’t all gathered yet. If we had an exit, we could distract them in the front and leave from the back.”

“Snipers,” Rex reminded her, leaning against the wall as he took deep, heaving breaths.

“Which is why I said exit,” Wren countered, hopping down to join them. “It’d have to be one hell of a distraction, though.”

 _We’re at the ship,_ Fulcrum’s voice interjected. Rex could tell she was speaking to all of them just by the way each member of their group twitched in response. _If you can get out, we’ll come and pick you up._

Rex felt his vision try to gray out. _No. That was not happening_ , he thought, and stayed conscious out of sheer stubbornness.

Wren and Orrelios were vicious, skilled warriors. With their backs against a wall, they’d fight with all of their skill. Wolffe could take on an entire battalion of droids back in the day before he’d ever consider dropping, and he didn’t view stormtroopers as being any different. Gregor was the only one of them in decent shape—he’d last the longest.

It wasn’t even a decision.

 _Commander,_ Rex replied, focusing on each word with care. _All eyes are on us. We exit, we die. Get the hell out of here, Ahsoka._

When Rex stood up, Gregor was next to him, helmet off, staring him in the face. “Rex.”

Rex felt his eyes widen. Gregor hadn’t said his name in years. “Yeah?”

Gregor smiled, resting his hand on Rex’s shoulder. “Brother.”

Rex felt his gut twist in horror. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Commander,” Gregor said aloud. His words were slow and deliberate, betraying the effort it was taking to say them correctly. “Pick up in four minutes.”

 _Gregor?_ Fulcrum sent, her mental tone wrapped in worry.

“Plan,” Gregor replied, grinning.

“You’ll fucking die, you—” Rex bit back the insult. If they were going to die, he didn’t want that to be the last thing he said to his brother.

Gregor shrugged. “All die if we stay.” He went to Wolffe and cupped Wolffe’s cheek with his gloved hand. “Brother.”

“Asshole,” Wolffe spat in a choked voice. “It should be me. I’m the damned liability!”

Gregor shook his head. “Won’t make it. You’ll fall. Fail. This… _can’t_ fail.”

Wren reached out and drew Gregor into a tight hug when he went to her. “Family,” Gregor whispered.

“I love you, _ba’vodu_ ,” Wren whispered back. “Please try to survive.”

Orrelios bowed his head as he gripped Gregor’s arm. “Give them absolute hell, you crazy bastard.”

Rex was such a fucking hypocrite. It was all well and good when he was the one that might fall, but losing his brother? He couldn’t stand the idea. “Please don’t fucking do this,” he said, pulling his helmet so he could look at Gregor, face to face. He didn’t care if he was begging; words were all he had left. He didn’t have the strength remaining to make Gregor stay.

“Commander,” Gregor said quietly. He leaned forward to let their foreheads rest together. “You lead. We follow. You—you have to be there. To lead.”

“You’re a captain, remember?” Rex felt chilled. There was something in Gregor’s voice, something that sounded like prophecy. “You know how to lead, too.”

Gregor grinned at him. “Terrible captain. Good at sacrifices, though. Third time is the icicle.” He rolled his eyes. “Dammit.”

“Charm.” Rex swallowed. “Brother.”

“Brother,” Wolffe repeated. “You make those fuckers remember what a man of the GAR can do.”

Gregor put his helmet back on. “Two minutes.”

Rex looked at his brother for what he knew would be the last time. The dragonfly wings on his armor were glimmering in the dim light in a way that shouldn’t be possible, but it was Wren’s work. It was always something special.

They were all just soldiers once, clones purchased to fight and die for the Republic.

Just like Wren’s art, Gregor was always something more.

“Give them hell, Gregor.” It was the only true blessing Rex knew how to give.

“Force is with you,” Gregor replied, and then leapt up the rubble pile, exiting out of another high and broken side window of the building.

Rex didn’t know what Gregor did once he left their hiding place. Whatever it was attracted attention, enough that they only had two squads of stormtroopers to pick off afterwards.

“Thirty seconds,” Wren said in a heartbroken voice. “Almost there.”

Something violent tore through the earth, throwing them all to the ground. Wolffe emitted a pained cry as blackness tried to steal over Rex’s vision. He fought against it, but it was much harder to stay conscious that time.

“What the hell was that?” Orrelios asked, wide-eyed, as they start picking themselves up from the ground.

Wren recovered the fastest, climbing up a new debris pile to look outside. “Oh,” she said, startled. “I didn’t realize—I didn’t see it. There’s a crater. We were near the city’s primary power generator. Gregor must have—he must have drawn them in and…”

Rex nodded, choking back everything he wanted to say. “Wren, get down here! We have to go, right _now!_ ”

Gregor was right. Rex commanded, and they followed. Orrelios grabbed Wolffe and slung him over one shoulder like an infuriated sack of wet cats. Wren caught Rex’s elbow when he stumbled and shoved him upright again. They ran, grim-faced, out the back and into the field beyond the city. The _Ghost_ was just touching down a bare five meters from their crumbling shelter.

There were no shots taken. No one even shouted in their direction.

The ship lifted off before Orrelios could hit the button to close the loading ramp. It came up with a soft, pneumatic whine. It sounded like the noise Rex wanted to make.

This was not his fault.

He didn’t care. He’d still failed another brother.

Tano had her hood off and came straight to Rex once they’d all wandered into the ship’s hold. “I told you,” she said in a soft voice. “No sacrifices.”

Rex wanted to reply, to claim it should have been him. Two different explosions, blood loss— _Gregor’s_ loss—had other plans. He slumped forward and passed out in her arms, instead.

They escaped; they lived to fight another day. Rex had a new scar on his back, a faint line that bacta hadn’t healed. Wolffe had five cracked ribs, a broken femur, and shrapnel lodged in the back of his neck that had just missed his spine. The Alliance medical droid told them all that Wolffe should probably be dead, but Rex wasn’t surprised that Wolffe survived. It was what they fucking well did. Wolffe spent a few extra days in a bacta tank and came out in a sour mood that nothing would shake.

Wren grieved for almost a week straight in complete silence. Then, in the middle of the ship’s night cycle, she got out her paint.

An entire wall in the hold of the _Ghost_ was painted black. Red panels that blended into the black background rose from floor to ceiling, and each red panel was etched with the silvery-gray pattern of dragonfly wings.

 

Imperial Year 27

Republic Date 5239: 2/13th

Imperial Space, The Colonies Region

 

Rex jolted back to the present when Wolffe kicked him. “What?” he growled.

“Stop fucking thinking about it, that’s what,” Wolffe retorted.

Rex narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you!”

“The hell is the matter with you two?” Cody asked, glancing up from the datapad he’d been staring at since Skywalker had gotten the mutant _Kazellis_ bucket into the air.

Wolffe pulled his helmet, revealing that he was still glaring at Rex. “Dwelling on it won’t make it better.”

“Please go get fucked,” Rex replied, pulling his own helmet. He was sick of breathing recycled air. Time to breathe recycled ship’s air instead.

“I just wanna know why Rex and Wolffe are acting like they’ve forgotten what grudge-fucking actually means,” Jesse put in.

Kix sighed. “Seriously, it’s been twenty-six years and you still have no sense of timing?”

“Still got great timing in one area!” Kix glared at Jesse and dug his elbow into Jesse’s side, making him yelp.

“He definitely forgot that it’s stupid to get into a battle of wits with a man who knows where all of your pressure points are,” Boil pointed out, smirking.

“Asshole.” Jesse glared at Boil while rubbing at his side. “You could have flown up with the others.”

Boil shrugged. “Yeah, but I want this fucker to give me an excuse to hit him again, and how can I do that if I’m not around when it happens?”

Cody side-eyed Boil before looking at Rex again. “What’s that look for?” Rex asked.

“Just thinkin’ that this all sounds pretty normal, is all,” Cody said. “Easy to fool yourself for a moment into believing that nothing’s changed.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kix muttered. “Besides, everyone’s phased Mando’a out of their vocabulary except me.”

“Hard to keep it up when you’re surrounded by people who don’t know what the hell you’re saying,” Cody said.

Rex felt himself grimace. “Yeah.”

Wolffe glared at him again, huffed, and then all but slammed his helmet back over his head.

“The fuck’s wrong with him?” Jesse asked.

“He’s turning off all external channels so he doesn’t have to hear me say it. Fuckin’ hypocrite.” Rex leaned against the wall. “Gregor.”

Boil sat up and peered around Cody. “I knew he was one of the brothers who got the fuck off of Kamino, the first group of us to AWOL. I didn’t even know he was alive until his name turned up on the list. What happened to him?”

“Died,” Cody answered, pocketing the datapad. “Two months before Alderaan.”

Boil scowled. “How the fuck do you know?”

“I’m Intelligence, dumb shit,” Cody replied. “If you weren’t so busy punching people, you’d have heard me say it the first three times.” Cody shook his head and glanced at Rex. “I know Gregor is on Alliance record as dying in a firefight with Imps, full honors listed. Not much else, though.”

“It was an ambush on Ord Varee.” Rex looked at Wolffe, who had his arms crossed over his chest and was probably trying to murder Rex with his eyes. “Wolffe doesn’t want anyone talking about it, because then _he_ starts thinking about it, and he blames himself for all of it. I’ve been telling him that he’s full of shit for six years, but the dumb fuck won’t listen to me.”

“What happened?” Jesse asked. All of his earlier teasing was gone, replaced by the serious focus that led Rex to promote his younger brother time and time again—not that Jesse had ever thanked him for it.

“Trap,” Rex explained. “We were meeting a vetted spy, ex-Imperial who turned out not to be so ex-Imp, after all. I told Wolffe that if three brothers and three Jedi all missed any hints that things were going to go to shit, then it was on all of us, not just him. There was a firefight and a chase that lasted hours. Half the group went one way as a big, shiny distraction so that Syndulla could get the Jedi out safely. By the time we were corned, the only one of us who wasn’t shot, bleeding, or actively dying—” Rex motioned at Wolffe—“was Gregor. He snuck out of cover, got the Imps to chase him, and took them right to the city’s power station. Caused one hell of an explosion, gave the Imps something a lot more important to worry about than us.”

“Kriffing hells,” Kix said. “Did you ever catch the bastard who sold you out?”

Rex shook his head as the ship slowed and touched down in the _Tatius’s_ hangar bay. “Not for lack of trying, though. I’d happily wrench his limbs off and stick him out in a field for the birds to eat alive, but Gregor was Sabine’s favorite. She has dibs. If I find the fucker before she does, I’ll gift-wrap him, put a bow on his head, and hand him over with a smile on my face.”

Skywalker entered the main hold, Tano at his heels, before Rex finished speaking. “Ship’s on stand-by in case we need to give anyone else a lift. At this point, I’m not shutting her down until we’re landing her on Lothal. Who are we gift-wrapping?”

“Arrun Hux. Know him?” Rex asked, only half-serious.

To his surprise, Skywalker nodded. “Yeah. He’s an asshole. Hux is doing his best to work his way up the ranks to lick Iceheart’s boots. Why?”

“Fuck,” Rex said flatly. “Look, don’t tell Wren that. I am not going to chase a Mandalorian woman hell-bent on fulfilling a blood oath for revenge all the way to godsdamned Coruscant. And now what’s _that_ fuckin’ look for?”

Boil had a grin on his face that still managed to have an edge of sadness. “Just thinking that gift-wrapping shit sounded a hell of a lot like something our General would have pulled back in the day, especially those last few months of the war.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Rex asked, baffled. Kenobi had been grim and fierce, but gift-wrapping and handing someone over for what Sabine Wren had in mind—he couldn’t see that, and that was keeping the revealed Sith shit in mind.

“Damn. I forgot that he wouldn’t know. We never did tell him, did we?” Boil asked, looking at Cody.

Cody was slowly shaking his head. “No, we uh—decided to wait. Until Rex came back.”

Rex looked up at Skywalker. “I will forget the building shit for five whole minutes if you translate what the fuck they’re saying.”

“The botched bombing run on Tarabba wasn’t botched. It was deliberate, one of the Speedies in Phantom. CZ-9620.” Skywalker shoulders hunched inward. “Field execution.”

Rex stared at Skywalker, then Cody and Boil. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah. I was standing right there. Hell, _I_ was going to kill the miserable little shit, but the General beat me to it. Scared the hell out of pretty much everyone,” Cody said. “Don’t think anybody started breathing again until Kenobi dropped the blaster and left.”

Rex glared at Skywalker again, who raised his hand in a gesture for patience, which was weird to see. Rex didn’t know his ex-General knew the meaning of the word. “Obi-Wan was really fucking pissed,” Skywalker said. “We all were, to be honest. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be that nice. My plans started with making the fucker bury everyone by hand. Ghost and Torrent’s survivors, however…”

“Pretty sure the nicest thing we had in mind was, ‘Torture him to death,’” Boil said dryly. “Kenobi was being fuckin’ merciful.”

Cody nodded. “He always said he was never going to send any of us to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself.”

Boil snorted. “Yeah. Remember the shower incident?”

Cody actually cracked a real smile. “Yeah. I’d forgotten that.”

“Shower incident?” Tano asked.

Skywalker grinned. “Before the Kello Campaign. Way before Christophsis and Yoda deciding that you needed to be the Padawan of a crazy person. I wasn’t there—I had half of the 501st off with me doing cleanup for one of the 41st’s engagements, but Cody told me all about it later.”

“Tell meeeeee,” Jesse whined. “I didn’t get to hear this story the first time, and the last day has been one-shots and vague references without fucking context, and I would actually like to know _something_ , even if it is a trivial bullshit something!”

Boil chuckled. “So, half of the 501st is with Skywalker, including Rex, which meant there was no one around who could actually put the fear of the gods into everyone and make their asses behave. Wraith Company, to a man, managed to piss Slick the hell off.”

“What, by existing?” Kix asked, grinning.

“I dunno. The details kind of got lost, or maybe it was the sort of shit that only makes sense if you’re Slick,” Boil said. “Either way, Slick is pissed and Wraith Company has to pay. So he hacks the database for the _Valiant_ , reprograms the computer so that Wraith Company’s section of the ship suddenly has no hot water.”

Tano gave Boil a curious look. “I’m almost disappointed it wasn’t something more violent.”

Cody snorted. “Nah, it wasn’t about violence. Slick always understood that there’s more than one way to make someone suffer.”

“I’m not sure I follow why a lack of hot water would be suffering.”

“The hot water was hot because it was in the ambient tanks, sucking up the heat the ship generated. The cold water had to be refrigerated so it would stay that way,” Skywalker explained. “Thus, anything that came out of, oh, say, the _showers_ …”

“Was stone fuckin’ cold.” Boil picked up the thread again, grinning like a nostalgic fiend. “So, there are one hundred and forty-odd assholes standing around bitching and whining because the water’s too cold. In comes the General to address the issue, except instead of ordering the idiots into the showers because they needed to prep fuckin’ _yesterday_ , he turns on one of the showers, sticks his hand in, and then stands under the water, fully dressed.”

“By the time my idiot General is thoroughly soaked, he gives everyone this innocent damned smile and says it’s no colder than the rain on Kamino. Then he gets out of the water, turns off the tap, and walks away. At that point, nobody can bitch about the cold and save face, so into the showers they go.” Cody smiled again. “Asked him after we were back out in the ship’s corridor if it really was that temperature. He says no; he says it might as well have been a glacier melt, and also he can’t feel his extremities.”

The others started laughing, and Rex realized he was smiling. It was a good memory, and a nice reminder that no, Slick never wanted them dead. Bite marks and dislocated joints were the worst he’d ever offered any of them.

The last few days, hearing about the bombing run’s aftermath—it was really making him consider Vader’s actions on Ruuria in a new light, much as he didn’t want to. It was easier to be angry, and what he was realizing meant he couldn’t stay that way.

“Rex?” Skywalker gave him a gentle nudge on the shoulder as the others stood up. “Come on, I bet that carbon-scored mess the others are calling a ship has caught up to us and landed by now.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I…” Rex stood up, but he tucked his helmet beneath his arm instead of putting it on. “I guess maybe I can be a bit nicer about you burying me with a balcony.”

Skywalker flinched before looking at him. “I thought it was a building.”

“Nah, just some balconies…and a pretty blue chair.” Rex had to swallow before he could say the words. “You knew. You knew I was still alive.”

Skywalker bit his lip. “Yeah.”

“And he did, too. He had to have; he’s the one who spoke.”

Skywalker nodded. “He knew.”

“Fucking why?” Rex asked, still feeling like reality had stopped making sense. It wasn’t a great sensation, and it’d been pretty constant for days now.

Skywalker’s brow furrowed. “Rex…Vader was a creation of the Emperor, but he was still made from pieces of me.”

Rex watched him walk away, struggling to make that fit into a head already too full from everything else he’d had to cram into it this week. Then he heard Boil shout, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

 

*          *          *          *

 

By the time Rex joined them in the hangar, Boil was pointing at Skywalker. “Okay, he was weird enough. But you, too?”

Cody bit back a smirk as Boil resumed pointing at Kenobi. He was standing in the way Cody used to think of as his General’s traditional “Welcome back” position in the hangar, like he was still waiting with forced cheer for battle reports…and the damned casualty lists. Someone had found his General a black shirt and brown trousers to wear, his hair was pulled back, and his odd blue-sheened lightsaber on his belt. In short, Kenobi was doing a very good job of not looking like he still belonged in Medical.

Kenobi was flanked by Skywalker and Jade. The former had mastered his mother’s serene and entirely false “I’m harmless” demeanor; the latter was definitely practiced at stone-faced amusement.

“Hello, Lieutenant. Or…” Kenobi half-closed his eyes. “Lieutenant Colonel, yes?”

“Can’t seem to ditch the lieutenant part,” Boil said, starting to grin again. “Damn glad to see you, sir.”

“Likewise, but don’t call me sir. I’m not your general anymore.” Kenobi tilted his head. “What are we betting on, Boil?”

“Twenty-five years on, and it’s still weird when you do that,” Boil said. “Wager’s on about whether Slick figures out how to spontaneously regenerate a new foot just so he can kick their asses for not mentioning that you were _also_ miraculously not dead.”

“It’s like they’re doing everything they kriffing can to start another damned brawl,” Kix said in a tone of complete irritation. “And you! I was gone for ten hours, and you’re already skipping out of Medical!”

Kenobi gave Kix a bland look. “I was only eight hours ahead of the scheduled discharge, Kix, really.”

“Thirteen,” Jade countered without looking at Kenobi.

Kenobi narrowed his eyes. “Mara, please stop helping him win this argument. Fine. Just by thirteen hours.”

“Kriffing spacetape, I kriffing swear,” Kix muttered, and Cody smiled. No, that man would not stay where you put him, no matter where that place happened to be.

Cody glanced to his left, noticing the well-hidden flash of concern in Rex’s eyes. Not completely true. If Rex was involved, Kenobi had a very good habit of staying exactly where he’d been put. That had been seriously damned convenient during the war.

“I’m just wondering why your squad’s lead would need to spontaneously grow a new foot,” Luke said, his eyebrows just a touch higher than normal.

“Because he’s a dumb fucker who steps on thermal detonators!” Echo yelled, his voice carrying across the entire hangar bay.

“Fuck you!” Slick yelled back.

“And here come the newly betrothed now,” Wolffe announced, pulling his helmet again to reveal his wide, infamous grin.

Slick was being supported by Echo, who had one of Slick’s arms resting over his shoulder. The rest of Lylek Squad, plus Targeter, were following along behind them.

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” Slick roared.

Echo was staring at Kenobi in complete bafflement. “Sir?”

“Hello, Echo.” Cody tried not to wince when Kenobi’s expression went sober and sad. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry—oh,” Echo said as he realized what Kenobi was talking about. “The Citadel. Pretty sure that wasn’t your fault, and hey! I got to spend twenty-six years with this asshole, here.”

“Fancy stick,” Eel said, and then glared at Jesse. “You prick!”

Jesse opened his arms in a wide, expansive shrug. “Hey, I warned you.”

“That wasn’t a warning. That was fucking confusing!” Eel yelled back. “Sir! I am very glad you are somehow not dead and…no, you know what? I give up. Today is officially weird.”

“I’d say it’s more complicated than weird, but still a fair assessment,” Kenobi replied dryly, and then noticed Lylek Squad’s sister. “Numan’arru! It does not surprise me at all to see that you have become _gida_.”

Numan’arru had both hands over her mouth. “Oh,” she was whispering through her fingers. “Oh, I remember—I remember you. You’re—oh.”

“ _Gida_?” Wolffe asked.

“Warrior,” Tano translated. “Female inflection.”

Obi-Wan smiled and glanced at Anakin. “What did you do, Padawan?”

Skywalker plastered on his best mock-innocent look. “Look who I found?”

Kenobi gave the group—muddied, tired, out of charge, but ultimately triumphant—a careful, evaluating stare. “I’m not sure I like the look of them. Can we send them back?”

Skywalker spread his arms wide, mirroring Jesse. “Hey, they’re bought and paid for!”

“Oh, fuck you _,_ ” Slick snarled at Kenobi. “That joke is so fucking old, just like you’re _not._ ”

“Well, one of us had to remain hale and charming, and you did not take the job,” Kenobi replied, his tone perfectly serene.

Slick grinned. “Go die in a fire,” he said, and Kenobi visibly flinched. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I step too close to an inconvenient truth?”

Kenobi glanced pointedly down at Slick’s bandaged leg and lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, out of the two of us, I’d say that you are the one who put his foot somewhere it definitely did _not_ belong.”

“Double-fuck you,” Slick replied, starting to look pleased. Gods save them all if Slick and Kenobi decided they liked each other, even if it was just via the joy of intense sarcasm.

Motion caught Cody’s attention, and he turned his head just in time to watch Targeter push her way to the front of the very confused squad.  “And I remember you, too.”

Kenobi lifted his head, puzzled. Cody saw it when recognition filtered in, as well as stunned surprise. “Winter?”

Targeter strode forward and threw her arms around Kenobi, which made Jade’s hand twitch towards her blaster before she recalled herself. Kenobi wrapped Targeter in a hug and closed his eyes. If Cody had to label that expression, he’d call it pensive grief.

“I didn’t think you would remember me,” Kenobi murmured, his voice just loud enough for those standing closest to hear.

“I remember everything,” Targeter replied, stepping back and smiling at him. “Literally.”

Kenobi blinked several times to clear his eyes of tears that were threatening to fall. “You and your sister were a bright spot during a very terrible time. I was always…always grateful.”

“That is both sad and pleasing to hear. I always do like to know when I’ve been helpful.” Targeter gave him an up-and-down look. “Does the explanation for this make any sense at all?”

“It makes perfect sense!” Skywalker protested, which made both Rex and Tano roll their eyes. “It’s just…really complicated. Several days’ worth of storytelling levels of complicated.”

“I see.” Targeter shifted her gaze to Skywalker. “I’m not sure how the Princess is going to react to…well, you.”

Skywalker winced again. “I started a Petition,” he blurted.

Kenobi blanched. “You did _what?”_

Targeter remained unfazed. “Did she accept it?”

Skywalker nodded. “Yeah, she uh…she did.”

“Does she know it’s you?”

Skywalker shook his head. “No. I left it anonymous. It seemed a bit more believable than pretty much all of the alternatives.”

“Wise choice,” Targeter commented, eying Kenobi when he plastered one of his hands over his face.

“What kind of petition are we talking about?” Luke asked, looking as baffled as Cody felt. He was only following about half of this, and he’d never liked not knowing things.

“Uh—later. That one should also wait for later, because it’s _also_ complicated,” Skywalker said, suddenly looking exhausted. “I reserve the right to sleep a hell of a lot before that happens.”

“Yeah, there’s an idea. I have a bleeding, belligerent asshole I need to take to Medical,” Kix said, jerking his thumb at Slick.

Ghulam chose that moment to make an appearance. His polite professional mask turned into utter disapproval as he took in the state of everyone who’d just been planetside. “Dear gods, I should just hose you all down where you stand before I let you go anywhere else on my ship.”

Wolffe grinned again, showing off all his teeth. “Then the hangar bay becomes a muddy arena, and we take bets on who wins each match, right Fym?”

“Fym? Wait, that’s _Fym_?” Everyone who’d been 212 th or 501st during the Second Kello Campaign whipped around to stare at the captain of the _Tatius_. “Holy shit, it is Fym!” Eel declared.

Ghulam sighed and looked at the ceiling before he glared at Kenobi and Skywalker. “I very much hate both of you.”

“Yeah, that’s totally Fym,” Jesse said, grinning widely when the captain glared at him. “Hi there! I must have missed you earlier.”

Ghulam frowned. “Weren’t you declared dead twice over, General?”

Jesse shrugged. “Third time’s the charm?”

“It kriffing well better not be,” Kix muttered.

Ghulam looked like a man who’d just given up. “Someone please give me a report on what happened down there so that I may make it official with High Command.”

“Everything Imperial is dead, everything Imperial-built is destroyed, and there is a crater where a base used to be,” Echo rattled off. “It was fun!”

Slick shook his head. “It was just a thermal detonator, for fuck’s sake.”

“You don’t get to say shit about that until you have two feet you can kick people with,” Echo retorted, and Slick fell into mulish silence.

Ghulam glanced down, noted the bloodied bandages, and lowered his shoulders in resignation. “None of you know the meaning of prompt medical treatment, do you?”

“Not currently dying. Piss off, Fym.”

“Oh, it _is_ you. I thought I’d recognized you, Slick.” Ghulam shook his head. “I’m reporting in. Please try not to turn my ship into a filthy disaster, or I _will_ make you all clean it up with godsdamned toothbrushes.”

Jesse waited until Ghulam had departed before he said, “Yep, Fym’s still touchy.”

“Indeed,” Kenobi said, smiling. “While you lot were off creating mass destruction, we made certain there was food waiting in the commissary, and you all have berth assignments if you need a place to sleep. We shuffled things as best we could, but the _Tatius_ only has so many rooms. You’ll have to double up.”

“Yeah, that’s not really gonna be an issue,” Pulsar muttered, glancing at Echo and Slick.

“So, is this uh…a general receiving his troops sort of meeting?” Eel ventured.

Kenobi shook his head. “No, this is—” His voice broke, and his eyes were shining with unshed tears when he spoke again. “This is just someone welcoming friends. I never thought I’d ever see any of you again. I wanted to be here because seeing you makes it fucking _real._ ”

“Yeah, we get that,” Lichen said, nodding at Kix. “We’re sort of used to the weird, but seeing it really does help.”

Kenobi looked at Lichen. “682nd, yes?”

Lichen reared back in surprise. “How’d you know that, sir?”

Kenobi made a disgruntled face. “Don’t call me sir, please. I know because I knew the name of everyone under my command.”

Lichen started to shake his head. “I was under General Kolar—”

“I’m aware,” Kenobi said, while Cody frowned. He’d suspected certain harsh truths during the war, but hadn’t said anything. Not his place. Still, Skywalker and Kenobi were always the first ones to deal with a battle; Cody had watched as the color was leeched from his General’s hair, aging him and driving him down into the deck plating. New problems cropped up, and off his General went, Cody right behind him. He could put those pieces together easily enough, and it made him seethe. He was _also_ observant enough to realize that aside from making Kenobi coordinate the entire damned war effort, the Jedi Council paid no heed to Kenobi at all.

“All right then, uh—sir!” Lichen yelped.

Cody jerked his head around to see both Luke and Jade supporting Kenobi, keeping him from hitting the floor. “Sorry, knees decided to take a break,” Kenobi quipped, a faint smile on his face.

“You seriously need to sleep,” Skywalker said in a hard voice.

“I’m aware of that, too,” Kenobi replied. “Mara, would you escort me to…?”

“If you hadn’t asked, I’d be dragging you,” Jade snapped. Cody watched them walk away, fretting because that was his job and it was _not_ his job.

Fuck, he’d picked a terrible time to quit drinking.

“What happened to him?” Echo asked, when no one else said anything. “Aside from how fucking weird this is, I’ve never seen him willing to do…well, that.”

“Torture,” Cody said tersely. “Leave it at that, all right?” He watched everyone either stand in place, bewildered, or shuffle around in confusion, but no one else said anything. Poor damned Click from the old 104th looked like one more dead person was finally one dead person too many.

Cody watched Pulsar’s body language, or at least what he could see of it beyond his clinging Noghri escort, before glancing at Wolffe. “Hey. I think maybe you need to go help babysit one of _your_ crazy people.”

Wolffe let out a sigh. “Yeah, that sounds about right. HEY!” he barked, getting the entire group’s attention via pure, intimidating volume. “You’re Pulsar, right?”

Pulsar just stared at Wolffe, doing a damned good job of being intimidating right back. “Yeah.”

“Good. You’re going to help me clean up the crazy motherfucker you’re hauling around,” Wolffe announced, and strode right into the cluster of squadmates without waiting for an answer.

“You. Medical,” Kix declared, glaring at Slick.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you and your fucking not-dead boyfriend,” Slick groused.

Echo just smiled at Slick’s grumbled bitching. “I’ll take this mellowed asshole to Medical for you, Kix.”

“I HAVE NOT FUCKING MELLOWED!”

“Yep! Totally have mellowed,” Echo replied cheerfully. Unlike Jade and Kenobi, Echo really did seem to be dragging Slick off in the right direction, followed by a seriously displeased ex-501st medic and his boyfriend…and Numan’arru, who waved at Boil with a huge grin on her face.

Boil rolled his eyes. “Be good, _lia’ry_.”

“You aren’t worried about that?” Rex asked.

Boil snorted. “Worried about _them_ , maybe. She’s relentless and ruthless.”

“So you’re saying nothing’s changed about her at all aside from being taller,” Cody remarked in a dry voice.

“Nah.” Boil stuck a tabac stick in his mouth, smiling around it. “Not really.”

Eel was watching Wolffe, Pulsar, and the Noghri herd Click in the direction of what Cody really hoped was a damned shower. Targeter had come home wearing part of the planet, but Click had tried to bring the rest. “I guess we should get the _Gedin'la Dinii_ shut down. She needs a refit like nobody’s business,” Eel said.

“She needs a bath, Commodore,” Targeter countered, eying the ship in question. “I’m not fond of Captain Ghulam’s ideas about how to clean the rest of us, but hosing down the ship might not be a bad idea.”

Rex grinned. “Did I hear you right? Who named that ship the _Gedin'la Dinii_?”

Eel just shook his head. “It’s Click’s ship. Who do you think?”

“What does _Gedin'la Dinii_ mean?” Skywalker’s kid asked. “The only words I know in Mandalore are really impolite.”

“Best sort of words to know,” Boil said, cupping his hands around a flame to light the end of the tabac stick.

Rex looked at Luke. “ _Gedin'la Dinii_ literally means _Almost Insane Lunatic_.”

Targeter made a sound that Cody thought might have been a politely restrained laugh. “There is no ‘almost’ when it comes to Captain Click.”

Cody waited until everyone was drifting off towards their respective tasks. Tano and Skywalker had all but converged on Luke, and were now in the midst of a low-voiced conversation Cody couldn’t make out. Winter and Eel were trading exceptionally polite barbs as they helped Boil and Lichen corral the hangar crews into coming over to assist with the _Dinii’s_ full shutdown.

Rex kept glancing in the direction Jade had taken Kenobi. Cody figured he wasn’t going to get a better opportunity. He leaned in close and asked, “When did you fall in love with him?”

Rex glared at Cody for a full minute before his anger evaporated. He let out a sigh and shook his head. “Few years after Sixty-Six. Not before.”

“Odd timing,” Cody noted.

Rex gave him a searching look, but he didn’t seem inclined to punch Cody. He was glad; Boil hit fucking hard, and his teeth probably wouldn’t forgive another hit on the same day. “You knew.”

“Yep.”

“And you didn’t say anything?” Rex hissed.

Cody shrugged. “If either of you had slacked off, I would have, but you didn’t. You two made each other inclined to do _sane_ things on the battlefield instead of the crazy shit that was fucking nuts, even by our standards.”

“Yeah, I was…I was watching for that, too, long before it ever became an actual regs violation,” Rex admitted. “Never happened, so I decided—at least for that? Fuck the rules.”

“Nope, not what you were fucking,” Cody said, grinning, and earned himself another glare. “Just because I’m not interested doesn’t mean I’m unobservant or stupid, Rex.”

“No, you’re just an asshole,” Rex retorted. Cody waited, and after another minute or so, Rex gave in. “We were so fucking young, Cody. What the hell did we know about love, other than what we’d been told on Kamino or picked up afterwards? Love was supposed to be that big, encompassing feeling, like cloud-floating or some shit, right?”

Cody just tilted his head, mouth twisting. Platonic relationships had always made a hell of a lot more sense to him, even without trying to grasp the idea of cloud-romance. He loved the hell out of Kenobi, and would still willingly die for him, but he didn’t want to sleep with the man.

“It was just…learning it, I guess,” Rex said. Cody was standing right next to him, but Rex’s voice had just gone so low that it was difficult to make out the words. “Somehow, one of Kenobi’s knives wound up in my kit before I was transferred out to Kamino. You remember, the set Captain Antilles gave him when the captain realized that everyone’s favorite General was getting twitchy in a bad way.”

Cody nodded. “I remember. I also remember that he was scaring the shit out of the ARCs with those throws.”

Rex’s eyes lit up as he smiled. “Yeah,” he said, but the smile faded just as quickly as it had appeared. “I kept that knife with me for about five years, glad it was something—glad it was there. Then I needed it. Saved my ass, but the blade snapped, the kind of damage that you can’t repair. I got back to base, a shitcan we had at the time, and realized that I’m holding two pieces of broken metal in my hands and sobbing over them like a fucking Shiny who just lost his first rifle. That’s when I realized the cloud stuff was bullshit. Love was who got into your heart and stayed there, people you’d do anything for…but the best part was just about being together.”

Cody closed his eyes for a minute. He understood that part of it, definitely. “That’s when you grew the beard, wasn’t it?”

Rex nodded. “I realized that if I didn’t have that stupid knife, I needed _something_. Also, it drives Wolffe completely up the wall, so that’s a nice bonus.”

Cody looked at Rex, lifting an eyebrow. “Wolffe’s been after you to shave it off, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Cody grinned. “I wonder how much shit he’d throw if you shaved it off after all this time?”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Obi-Wan was staring at the ceiling, exceptionally grateful for the emergency lights that cast a dim orange glow and kept the small berth from being completely dark. The light helped keep him aware of where he was, which was nice, but he couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t stop _thinking_ , jumping from the Adepts to the situation on Lothal and his lack of information regarding their progress since the battle, the unexpected number of old soldiers back in his life, Anakin, Anakin being stupid enough to start a _Petition_ , Luke, Mara, Kam, home, twenty-five thousand-year-old Jedi corpses, the Ones, Qui-Gon and Rillian, Tahl and Micah, their baby, Jeila, his parents, Kania, time travel—

His head was too full. There was too much stretching out in far too many directions, and since he couldn’t settle on any of it, the jumbled cycle just kept getting worse. He’d tried meditation, but that had worked for about five minutes before his thoughts badgered him out of the relatively calm state he’d managed to achieve.

He’d gone through this before. It was a side-effect of capture, torture, rescue, and possibly also from getting high on stim tabs and shoving people off of rooftops. No; he was pretty sure it was everything _but_ that last part. He’d actually sort of like to remember that bit.

When the comm sitting on the little shelf attached to the bunk chimed for his attention, it was a blasted relief. Conversation was something he could focus on, at least. He checked the signal origination, forwarded through the _Tatius_ but coming from somewhere much further away.

Obi-Wan thought about it for a moment, tapping his fingernails against the side of the comm, before answering it. “Tanno’baijii.”

“If it isn’t my favorite disappearing customer.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Hello, Karrde. I take it Mara must have recently checked in with you?”

“She did, yes,” Karrde replied. “You do remember that battling the Imperials on Lothal was supposed to be that day’s only concern, right?”

“Someone else had other plans.” Obi-Wan rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. “It’s taken care of now, at least.”

“And Mara assured me that it was a permanent fix.” Karrde hesitated. “Are you all right?”

“Do you want a lie, or do you want the truth?” Obi-Wan asked.

“I used to be forced to turn over far too much of my profit to a Hutt so corrupt that even other Hutts viewed him as scum. I don’t have any tender sensibilities left to ruin, Ben.”

“Never say that. You never know when you’ll find out that it isn’t as true as you once believed,” Obi-Wan countered, resting his arm over his forehead. “I’m not fine, but I’m not dying, either.”

“Can’t sleep?”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Talon, if you really believed I was going to be asleep, you would have saved this call for later.”

“True,” Karrde admitted. “There is such a thing as medical treatment, Ben. They make these wonderful things called mood stabilizers.”

Obi-Wan smiled at the man’s barely restrained sarcasm. “I’m aware, but thanks to a previous misadventure several years ago, they no longer work on me.”

“At all?” Karrde sounded surprised.

“Oh, they work at what your average medic would consider to be unhealthy, untenable doses, but there aren’t a lot of medics in existence who will actually listen to you when you tell them that their unhealthy dose is my bare minimum.”

“You are an insane being, Ben,” Karrde stated after a few beats of silence.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Oh, that’s an easy request to grant. Your interesting financial ventures have been paying off nicely,” Karrde said.

Obi-Wan propped himself up on his elbow. “Oh? By how much?” Karrde stated the number, and Obi-Wan felt himself grin. “Excellent. That should be useful later.”

“I’m sure it will.” Karrde’s voice shifted to annoyance. “Are you cheating when you call in those Sabacc wins? I am a smuggler, a gambler, and a liar, but cheating at Sabacc is not tolerated.”

Obi-Wan laughed aloud. “Cheat? Talon, I don’t need to fucking cheat. All I need to do is watch the first three hands, and I know exactly who’s going to win.”

“How?”

“Contrary to popular belief, Sabacc isn’t about skill. It’s about psychology,” Obi-Wan replied.

Karrde uttered a choked, strangled noise. “I have a lot of smugglers and pilots in my employ who believe the opposite. Please do not share your enlightened philosophy with any of them, or they might riot.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, but if they keep asking me for a game, they’ll probably regret it.”

He could all but sense Karrde raising his eyebrows in mock-innocent query. “May I ask why?”

“My father was Cliegg Lars, Talon.”

There was another pause. “You are shitting me.”

Obi-Wan grinned again. “I’m not.”

“That man retired from the game over forty years ago, and his name still inspires terror in Sabacc circles,” Karrde said in a disbelieving tone. “You’re _his_ kid?”

“Apparently, certain levels of understanding are genetic.” Obi-Wan took a certain amount of glee in listening to Talon Karrde trying to find words and failing at it. “Listen, you’ll hear from me again once I finally get the hell back to Lothal. I need to look around, inspect the damage or lack thereof, and think on a few things, first.”

“Understood,” Karrde said. “Ben Lars, huh?”

“That was my birth name, yes.” Obi-Wan had to fight to say the next part, even though it was old grief. “You can reassure your fellow Sabacc players that they’re in no danger of my father coming out of retirement. He died two years after the Empire’s founding.”

“Ah. You have my sincere condolences,” Karrde said. “ _Wild Karrde_ out.”

 Obi-Wan had no sooner placed the comm back down when there was a sold rap against the outside of the thin bulkhead door. “Well, you wanted distractions,” he muttered to himself before calling, “Come in, Rex!”

Rex stepped inside and triggered the door, letting it slide shut behind him. “Wasn’t going to bother you, but I heard your voice on my way back from showering. Figured that meant you weren’t sleeping.”

“Unfortunately not.” Obi-Wan took in the man’s fatigue trousers, a short-sleeved shirt that bordered on skin-tight, and boots that were a lot cleaner than anything he’d yet seen. At least someone had been able to pack spare damned clothing.

It was Rex’s face that Obi-Wan kept coming back to. “You shaved the beard. Why?”

Rex smiled. “Multitude of reasons, not least of which is how much of a fit Wolffe is going to throw once he sees it.”

Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow. “Been after you to shave it off for a while, has he?”

Rex leaned against the wall. “Pretty much since I grew it.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help smiling, despite a sudden flutter of nerves. “You’ve been driving the Commander nuts with facial hair?”

Rex shrugged. “Not a lot of other options where we lived, and driving each other crazy passed the time just as well as anything else.”

“I—” Obi-Wan tried, but the words dried up in his throat.

“Y’know, Cody was just reminding me that you sleep a hell of a lot better when someone’s sitting on you to make it happen,” Rex said, before Obi-Wan could figure out what the hell he was trying to say.

Obi-Wan stared at Rex. “He did?”

“Yeah, he did.” Rex was giving him an odd look. “I can—go. I mean, if you aren’t up for company, even just—”

Obi-Wan held up his hand. “Wait, just…are you asking to stay for my sake, or for yours?”

“Yours,” Rex said, surprised that Obi-Wan had asked. “I figured you deserved an easy out, since you seem to have used up all of your eloquence back in the hangar bay.”

“Hangar bay and a comm call,” Obi-Wan said, swallowing. “I just wanted to know if it was about…I’m not the kind of person you think I am, Rex.”

“Wrong,” Rex said flatly, startling him. “You’re exactly the kind of person I think you are.”

“And who is that?” Obi-Wan asked, trying to figure out if he was annoyed at the presumption.

Rex smiled. “I knew back during the war that even if you’d completely lost your shit by the Jedi Order’s standards, you were still the kind of man I could always trust at my back.” His smile faded. “You didn’t seem worried about it before.”

Obi-Wan blew out a long sigh. “You’re a wise man, and I’m—given the way Kix was sputtering over my neurochem profile, I’m probably all over the map again thanks to the damned Adepts.”

Rex nodded. “Any fix for that?”

“Time,” Obi-Wan replied, trying to smile. “Making sure nothing drops too low or skyrockets too high, particularly serotonin. Serotonin poisoning is fucking awful.”

Rex walked over and sat down on the bed beside Obi-Wan. “Are you seriously trying to figure out how to get injured in every conceivable fashion a humanoid can be and still survive it?”

“And even some things a humanoid can’t survive.” Rex glared at Obi-Wan. “Lightsaber bisection, Rex. Not that I actually stuck around long enough to experience it. Even I have limits.”

“You are a daft, dumb fucking bastard,” Rex said, and then kissed him.

Obi-Wan almost froze in place before memory filtered in. He’d received this same gentle press of lips in an Imperial bathroom full of shattered mirrors. He relaxed into the kiss, feeling Rex’s hand curl into his hair, fingernails just brushing Obi-Wan’s scalp.

“Okay,” Rex whispered against Obi-Wan’s lips. “Now you’re a hell of a lot less twitchy.”

“I was definitely working myself towards an anxiety meltdown, yes,” Obi-Wan admitted softly. “It’s all just been too much.”

Rex kept stroking Obi-Wan’s hair. “That bad?”

“I came here only half-recovered from something fairly dire, Rex.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “And—”

Rex stopped him with his finger pressed over Obi-Wan’s lips. “Shut up,” he said. “Nap first. Worry about the rest later.”

“Nap?” Obi-Wan asked, curious.

“Sleeping through dinner is a stupid idea,” Rex pointed out. “Four hours from now, though.”

Obi-Wan stroked his thumb down Rex’s clean-shaven face, smiling when Rex drew in a quick breath as Obi-Wan’s thumb brushed over his lips. “That sounds like an excellent plan.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Mara stopped by the berth assignment Ben had been granted and, after checking the corridor for nosy witnesses, pressed her ear against the metal bulkhead door.

Silence.

She considered the matter a moment longer, noted that the privacy lock hadn’t been engaged, and triggered the door. It slid open with a quiet hiss, allowing Mara to glance inside.

Ben and Rex were curled up in a pile of limbs on a too-narrow bunk, but they did it in such a way that told Mara they were used to figuring out how to make ridiculous sleeping conditions work for them. They were fully clothed and probably too warm for it, but her teacher was asleep, which was akin to a minor galactic miracle.

Mara might have teased Ben over the old clone’s presence, but she thought after this, she’d leave that sort of teasing to others. Ben had explained his issue with the stretched Lifebond—starting with what a Lifebond actually _was_ —and how it was part of the reason why he couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two at a time before that terrible stretched sensation woke him.

Mara shut the door, amused. She also couldn’t seem to stop calling him Tanno’baijii, but it wasn’t as if the name was inaccurate.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Obi-Wan woke up feeling a hell of a lot better, even if it was probably at least ten degrees too warm in the room. He’d spent a long time feeling too cold, so he’d take the alternative and be glad of it.

He glanced up to see Rex sitting up next to him, reading from a datapad. “Evening?” Obi-Wan guessed.

Rex nodded. “About twenty minutes until the commissary’s posted mealtime. It’s probably going to be crowded, if that’s a thing you need to worry about.”

“No, crowds are fine. It’s Adepts I’m not fond of,” Obi-Wan replied dryly. “What are you reading?”

“The Alliance’s vote is this evening. Confirmation of an Alliance turned New Republic, or whatever name they choose. Wanted to refresh myself on when certain provisions were going to come up.” Rex lowered the datapad and looked at Obi-Wan. “I heard one of Ghulam’s officers talking about turning the commissary into a viewing room. Everyone’s going to want to watch, and the only other place big enough to hold us all is the hangar bay.”

The vote. Obi-Wan felt a strange hint of _something_ in the Force, and then it was gone again. He couldn’t tell if it was just an elusive thread, or if the Force was still settling from the inadvertent mess he’d made.

“All right.” Obi-Wan sat up and stretched, feeling too-tense muscles protest. It was probably going to take a while to work that out, given the few terse, unhappy hints about the Adept’s work that Cody had told him on Byss. “Where the hell did I put my boots?”

Rex snorted. “You kicked them under the bed.”

Obi-Wan shook his head and slid off the bunk onto the floor to go boot-fishing. “Well, that was stupid.”

Outside the berth, Mara was leaning against the wall, waiting for him. Standing with her were Anakin and Luke, who were surrounded by the gray-skinned beings that had come in with Lylek Squad, plus two more who must have been late arrivals. Some of them felt distinctly male, one was distinctly female, and the others had no sense of gender at all. All six of them, however, radiated the kind of sensation in the Force that meant they were highly capable and exceptionally dangerous for those they dubbed enemies. For friends, it looked like they favored happy group-based mauling.

Luke had an amused, patient look on his face; two of the shorter beings were clinging to his hands. “My father explained the situation with his, uh, Noghri friends to me.”

“I don’t even know what the situation is,” Obi-Wan said, watching as a female in the group broke off from the cluster around Anakin and stepped forward to meet him. “Hello.”

She dropped into a graceful half-bow and then looked up. She had dark eyes with the faintest hint of a pupil in the center, eyelids without hair or fur for protection from the elements, and a soft, active nose. When she spoke, she revealed an entire mouthful of pointed teeth. “I greet you, brother of the _Ary’ush_.”

Obi-Wan could all but hear the capitalization, but he suspected it was the shared greetings that warranted it. “Who’s this _Ary’ush?_ ” Anakin raised his hand. “Ah. What does _Ary’ush_ mean?” Obi-Wan asked.

Anakin winced and looked at the ceiling. “Savior.”

Obi-Wan stared at him. “Savior—Anakin, what did you do?”

“He saved our world,” the female Noghri answered before Anakin could. “The _Ary’ush_ saved us while still wearing the mask that the Emperor placed upon him, and we owe him a grave debt that all our people honor.”

“Still wearing—” Obi-Wan had to bite off the words. He was suddenly very upset, and very fucking angry. “Before the Adepts, Anakin?”

Anakin nodded. “Yeah,” he said in a hoarse voice.

Obi-Wan boxed up both feelings and put them aside for later. “What is your name, friend of my brother?”

He knew he’d scored a cultural point when the female straightened a bit, gaining height, and the glimmer in her eyes became not just respectful, but pleased. “I am Whemmha clan Uroghr. Standing with your first-nephew is Kabarakh clan Khimbar, my second-nephew, and Harrukh clan Uroghr, my third-cousin.”

Obi-Wan nodded at them all, mentally translating the number system as potentially generation-based. “Greetings, friends of my brother. And the rest of you are?”

“I am Sheekh clan Votkhah. In our culture I am a healer; in yours I am considered a medic,” one of the male Noghri standing with Anakin said.

“I am Reeuuth clan Votkah,” one of the genderless Noghri said, mimicking Whemmha’s bow of greeting. Obi-Wan wondered if there was a ranking system for who did that, too, or if Sheekh just didn’t want to let go of Anakin’s leg. “Sheekh is my brother.”

“I am Ghiffk clan Khomh, of the first clans among the Noghri,” the other genderless Noghri said, bowing his head. “It is good to meet the man who left such an impressive trail for us to scent in your search.”

“Trail—oh, yes, that trail,” Obi-Wan replied, smiling. “I’m glad it was useful.”

The other male Noghri bowed at the waist, and for a moment Obi-Wan thought he was actually going to prostrate himself on the floor. “I am Fihkhi clan Thrukh. Kabarakh clan Khimbar is my second-cousin.”

Familial relations extremely important, clan affiliations were parts of their names, and the clans definitely had a ranking system. Obi-Wan nodded at them all. “It is very nice to meet those who seem intent on protecting my family.”

“That we are,” Whemmha agreed. “May we scent you?”

Scenting probably led to maulings, but at least no one was bleeding. “You may.” Obi-Wan held out his hand when Whemmha reached forward to grasp it. Her nose against his bare skin was soft, like the finest leather, but her touch was light enough that his arm twitched from being tickled. “Apologies.”

“None needed, brother of the _Ary’ush_ ,” Whemmha said. Then he was absolutely surrounded by six Noghri, who were hanging off of him like he was a climbing pole.

“Guess they approve,” Rex said.

Obi-Wan smiled before he glanced at Anakin. “What’s the debt?”

Anakin was running his fingers over the exposed black and gold lines of his bionic hand. “Ten-generation Life Debt. That was _after_ I negotiated it down from forever.”

“Ten was as low as they would go, hmm?” Obi-Wan looked at Mara. “Have you been introduced yet?”

“She has,” Kabarakh told him. “You smell of family to her.”

“Well, you live in close quarters with someone for a while…” Obi-Wan glanced at Mara, who was glaring at him. Oh, she knew. It was obvious that she didn’t want to discuss it yet, but she knew what the Emperor had done. He let a sense of apology fill their training bond, and got a sharp nudge in response.

_I didn’t know._

_Until when?_ Mara retorted, her words like acid.

 _Tamassa discovered the genetic similarity when you were injured last month._ Obi-Wan swallowed, aware that the Noghri had immediately picked up on his shift in mood. It was interesting that they were _also_ aware that it wasn’t directed at them. _I would have burned Coruscant to ash to find you._

Mara bit her lip and looked away. _I’m aware of that. Just—let me come to terms with this my way. Please._

 _Always._ Obi-Wan drew in a breath and noticed that Luke, Anakin, and Rex were all staring at him. “My eyes are the wrong color again, aren’t they?”

Anakin nodded. “Still that same shiny gold. What the hell is that from?”

“I didn’t know before, but Tamoeth—what he tried to do to Ahsoka—that reminded me.” Obi-Wan looked at Luke, but he was only curious. His nephew was well-versed in what evil-steeped Darkness was truly like. “It’s a remnant, a leftover.”

“Leftover from what?” Rex asked, giving him a sharp look.

Obi-Wan smiled again, aware that it was a rueful expression. “Being possessed.”

Mara turned her head back around so she could stare at him in angry bafflement. “Are you serious?”

“Very,” he said. Interestingly enough, Luke’s eyes widened at the mention of possession, but he didn’t say anything. Obi-Wan could tell that Luke was familiar with the concept, though he thankfully didn’t seem to have personally experienced it.

“Oh.” Anakin’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what you meant, when you were apologizing to Emmaltine about her brother.”

“I ripped the fucking bastard to bits,” Obi-Wan confirmed, feeling Noghri hands tighten on him in gentle reassurance. They were so sensitive to shifting emotions, alert and aware of the Force without ever having a name for it.

“That must’ve been messy,” Rex commented.

“But _very_ efficient,” Sheekh said in pleased approval.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “He was already dead. Not much mess to deal with, just gibbering blasted vicious insanity.”

“Shredding one who brings harm is still efficient,” Whemmha insisted. Obi-Wan couldn’t really argue with her. He didn’t want to, either.

“Death made the Son even more of an asshole. Good to know,” Anakin said as Ahsoka walked down the corridor to join them.

“The Son?” she asked, hearing the last part of the conversation.

“Soul-dead,” Anakin told her.

Ahsoka’s lips thinned out into a grim line. “Well, as much as I hate to sound vicious about it, I am _very glad_ he’s gone.”

“Dinner?” Luke suggested. It was a good way to redirect their focus away from dead, insane maniacs with no sense of boundaries—not to mention Mara’s discomfort with pretty much everything at the moment.

“Excellent plan,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Shall we?” he asked his clinging Noghri friends.

“We will not be joining you directly,” Ghiffk said, his voice deep and serious. “Our debt to the _Ary’ush_ also involves seeing to the protection of him, his family, and his allies. We will be nearby, but others in the commissary will not be aware of our presence.”

The Noghri released him before bowing very low to Anakin, their noses almost touching the ground, before they scampered off in a silent rush. Obi-Wan watched them go, and then blinked several times in amazement when they disappeared from sight. “They’re hiding with the Force, and they do it naturally,” he whispered.

When he looked at Anakin, his brother was smiling. “They sure do. Pulsar calls them brilliant little murder machines for a reason.”

“I’m going to be followed around by invisible murder machines. Great,” Luke said.

“Nah, it’ll be fine. They know who is and isn’t capable of handling themselves. They won’t interfere unless they feel it’s truly warranted,” Anakin reassured him.

“Dinner,” Ahsoka reminded them. “I missed breakfast and lunch, ration bars are terrible, and I will contemplate eating _one of you_ if you do not move along so we can have dinner!”

“Bossy Padawan.” Anakin slung his arm around Ahsoka’s shoulders. “Come on, you know humans probably taste terrible, Spy Girl.”

“Desperate measures, Skyguy,” Ahsoka replied, rolling her eyes, but at least now they were actually walking in the right direction. Luke was regarding them, an expression somewhere between fond and wistful on his face, until Anakin reached out and snagged Luke around the shoulders with his other arm, pulling him in close.

They picked up Jesse, Kix, and Echo along the way. Kix and Jesse had definitely been up to something, given Jesse’s kliks-wide grin and Kix’s slightly flustered expression. “I thought you’d still be in Medical,” Anakin said to Echo.

Echo shrugged. “I’m on my way there. There’s a whiny, bitchy bastard who comm’d me a few minutes ago and demanded I remove him from a terrible hellhole staffed by incompetent fucksticks.”

“Yep, that’s Slick,” Jesse said.

Kix frowned. “He’s not actually wrong about the incompetent fucksticks part.”

“Stop being territorial, Kix. It’s not your ship,” Rex said, and Obi-Wan felt his heart clench. How many conversations had he listened to that were just like this? How often had he taken for granted that the friends he’d made among so many cloned soldiers would somehow always be at his back?

Obi-Wan felt Cody’s presence just before Cody stepped up beside him to join the group. “Stop dwelling on shit twenty-five years gone,” Cody said in a soft voice. “Doesn’t fuckin’ help.”

“I’ll stop dwelling on it when you do,” Obi-Wan countered.

Cody glared at him, the expression enhanced by his matching set of scars. “Don’t start. I’m still resenting the fact that I quit drinking _before_ things got even fuckin’ weirder.” Then he glanced at Rex, took in the lack of beard, and smirked. “Wolffe seen it yet?”

Rex grinned back. “Not yet.”

“Excellent. I want to witness this shit,” Cody said.

“I am still mad at you,” Ahsoka told Rex. “For twenty years, I have been begging you to get rid of that beard, and you do it _now?_ ”

Rex shrugged, still grinning. “Why not now?”

It happened so suddenly that there was no warning at all. Later, it also would remind Obi-Wan of the cliff incident, but at least this hadn’t brought forth the same kind of half-drowned and bleeding results.

One step further along the ship’s corridor, and then Obi-Wan’s foot was coming down to rest not on durasteel plating, but soft earth rich with plants and rocks. It was so perfectly reminiscent of their planet-napping by Mortis that Obi-Wan nearly panicked until he heard Anakin exclaim, “What the _hell_?”

Obi-Wan turned around to find that he stood with Anakin, Luke, Mara, Ahsoka, and three completely bewildered clones. Echo kept glancing back and forth, like he was trying to make Sudden Forest compute; Rex had a startled look on his face that probably mirrored Obi-Wan’s expression; Jesse just looked frantic.

“Where the fuck is my boyfriend?” Jesse yelled.

“For that matter, where’s Cody?” Ahsoka asked.

“You know, I really do think the more important question is, ‘Where the hell are _we_?’” Mara said at her most caustic.

Obi-Wan breathed out panic. They weren’t in danger, and he was beginning to suspect he understood at least part of what was going on. “Did any of you sense anything beforehand?”

“Nope.” Luke was glancing around with curious eyes, taking in plant-life, the trees, and an old stone walkway that looked like a path leading to nowhere. They were at the edge of a forest, and beyond that was a wide clearing that allowed them to see a great blue expanse of sky overhead. “This feels like some of the dreams I’ve had in the last few years, but I’m pretty sure we’re not dreaming.”

“I’ve had dreams like this, too,” Obi-Wan said, thinking of his first dream-visit with Ulic, and what he’d been shown of ancient Ossus.

“Same here on the dream front. Sometimes in meditation, too,” Anakin said. “Nothing like this, though.”

“So this is a—a Force vision?” Rex asked. “Then why the fuck are _we_ here? We’re not Jedi!”

“Rex.” Obi-Wan looked at him. “You’ve never stopped being curious about the Jedi, even when you didn’t know any of us were left aside from Ahsoka. Given the expression on Echo’s face, I think he understands why, too.”

Echo turned his attention back to them, nodding. “Yeah. When Fives—when he died, I knew. We never got news reports on it or anything, but I just…I knew.”

“I had the exact likeness of Numan’arru carved on my rifle before I ever met her, down to the uniform she’s wearing.” A muscle twitched under Jesse’s eye. “And Kix just told me a few hours ago about the planet where he’d been stuck in a freezer box. I’ve been—I dreamed about that planet for twenty-six years. I just never understood why.”

“What about Kix and Cody, then?” Rex asked, still perplexed.

“Kix always grounded himself firmly in the practical, what he could see, hear, and touch, because that’s what he _needed_ to do his job without cracking,” Anakin said, resting his hand on Jesse’s shoulder when the latter still looked too panicked. “Kix hasn’t had time to think about anything else yet, I bet, and Cody’s the same way—grounded in the practical.”

“Anyone can hear the Force,” Obi-Wan told them, catching Rex’s eyes in particular. “All it takes is a single spark, a desire to learn, and the patience to listen. It’s useful to have a natural-born affinity, but it’s not the _only_ way to hear the Force speaking.”

Luke tilted his head. “You know, I can almost hear Yoda screaming indignantly over you saying that.”

“Yoda can cope,” Obi-Wan replied dryly.

“Okay.” Jesse took a breath and let it out. “Not dead, not sleeping.” He reached over and kicked at a rotting stump. His foot connected, breaking off part of the wood and sending it scattering down a slight incline. “But we are _definitely_ somewhere else.”

“Yes and no,” Anakin said. “We really are somewhere else, but we also haven’t gone anywhere. It’s sort of like being in two places at once. There’s probably a much better metaphysical explanation, but as far as everyone else is concerned, we’re still on the _Tatius._ ”

“Then what _is_ this place?” Echo asked. “I don’t recognize this planet.”

Mara frowned. “It’s a crack.”

“No, not a crack—well, I think it used to be a crack.” Ahsoka’s eyes were closed, her chin lifted towards the sky as she listened to both the Force and her sensitive montrals. “It’s an old break. I think we all happened to be in the right place at just the right time.”

“And the Force decided to dump a weird vision on our heads. At least it’s not just me this time,” Anakin muttered.

“That’s convenient,” Luke said in a mild voice.

“You spent far too much time with that damned ancient hellspawn of a green troll to be taking this so calmly,” Mara accused him.

Luke shrugged. “Probably. I’m just not sure what it is that I’m seeing ahead of us.”

Obi-Wan turned around again. What had once been an empty clearing was now an odd division of three, probably an extension of the break. On the left was an ancient stone temple surrounded by a thick jungle, evidence of a much warmer climate. On their right was another old stone temple built in a different style, surrounded by the woods they stood in and placed in what had been that empty clearing.

In the center, there was nothing but mist and darkness.

“That’s fucking creepy,” Echo observed. “Are all Jedi visions this weird?”

“No, usually they’re just confusing,” Ahsoka answered, sounding wry.

“How does this _not_ count as confusing?” Jesse asked, his voice still too high-pitched.

Obi-Wan raised his hand. “Yavin IV,” he said, pointing to the left branch. “Not sure about the right side; I don’t think I’ve ever been to that particular planet, either.” He pointed to the darkness that lay between those two temples. “And that…that is waiting potential.”

As if that was what the Force had been waiting for, information started pouring down on their heads in a torrential flood that would be easy to drown in. Obi-Wan reached out on instinct and snagged Rex’s hand, aware that Ahsoka and Anakin had done the same for Jesse and Echo. This would be a very, very stupid way to lose someone.

Rex’s hand clamped down around Obi-Wan’s fingers in a shocked, vise-like grip that ground bones together, but Obi-Wan ignored it. They were staring down those two different possibilities, watching older versions of Anakin’s children and their allies. Different circumstances. Different children from each part of the Skywalker line. Different Jedi—or the stunning lack thereof.

Obi-Wan could hear Captain Solo yelling for Ben, but it’s not Obi-Wan he’s seeking. It’s a man with dark hair and eyes, one in so much pain that it’s eating him alive. Then it’s Luke’s voice, telling a girl who could pass as Padmé Naberrie’s ghost that she will be the Sword of the Jedi, and no, that wasn’t right, even at their wartime worst against the Sith, the Jedi had claimed none of their own to be swords—

Then it’s Solo again in the familiar cockpit of the Millennium Falcon, but there is no Chewbacca at his side. Leia’s voice is speaking, sounding tinny and far away, like a comm channel someone’s trying to block: _Keep fighting. This is not the end. Twice already, Jedi-led forces have decimated Yuuzhan Vong fleets, and we enter each battle with new weapons and better tactics. We have prevailed against ruthless enemies before, against Palpatine, against Thrawn, against the Ssi-ruuk. This is a war we know how to win. Keep fighting until you can fight no longer, then exhaust the enemy chasing you, and turn and fight some more. Keep fighting_ , and all of this was wrong, what the hell _was_ this—

A man says in a strong, clear voice that he won’t kill for the First Order, but it’s an old man before them, not the one speaking. His words are different: “The First Order rose from the Dark side.” Leia, tired and worn but with fire still in her eyes, trying to convince a mired bureaucracy that the First Order was a threat, and then founding another Rebellion when no one would listen. Fighting is what she knows, by the Force, and Luke, where is Luke—

Obi-Wan couldn’t do anything more than bite back a scream as a grown man with a passing resemblance to both Solo and Shmi Skywalker cut Mara down with his lightsaber. The thoughts in the man’s head are steeped in Darkness and self-delusion, convinced that he is performing a worthy Sacrifice, too trusting of the words of a Sith who believes peace is an illusion and vengeance is the only thing that matters—

A dark-skinned man with brave eyes fights the Ben that Solo had been shouting for, justice running like soothing coolness in his blood, before he falls into the snow with a terrible lightsaber injury on his back. The blow isn’t fatal with medical treatment, but gods, it’s not a kind one, either. The lightsaber he’d held lands in the snow, and Ben reaches for it, but it is taken from his telekinetic grasp by another—

The Jedi woman who looks like the Solo-inclined ghost of Padmé cuts down the man who’d killed Mara, tears streaming down her face even as she drives her blade home. A young man barely out of adolescence, dying from fatal wounds, deliberately burns himself out in a bright flare of ethereal blue light to allow friends to escape, a Jedi to his very core despite his youth.  Then there is another young man that Luke is calling Ben, copper-haired and blue-eyed, the song of loss already in his gaze as he travels the galaxy with his father, seeking—

The one Solo had called Ben, much younger, cuts down Jedi with a red lightsaber that’s built wrong; something is broken. Then he is older, still bearing that same sparking red blade as he uses it to murder Han Solo with the horrified screams of witnesses echoing in his ears. Obi-Wan was fully aware that the act was terrifyingly reminiscent of his own death on the Death Star—

The New Republic crumbles in two different ways. From within, as corruption and complacency make the government blind to a threat led by a man hell-bent on revenge and destruction; from without, as invaders from another galaxy try to reclaim what they say is their birthright, their religion based upon hatred of the Force and of Jedi. They are also part of the Force, just unable to hear it, and willful blindness can make people do terrible things. Obi-Wan could only watch as Jedi are butchered by the Vong’s biological creations—

Obi-Wan heard Mara gasp and Anakin start cursing under his breath as Mitth'raw’nuruodo, Grand Admiral Thrawn, leads a vicious campaign in both places, attempting to reunify the galaxy by force. He keeps too many Imperial trappings under his banner, and the galaxy rebels. The dual campaigns lead to his death, one at Noghri hands, and the other by an assassin who will hear no more of unification—

The Jedi falter in both places before rising again, but never the same. The Order’s strength of old refuses to return. The galaxy is divided, weakened by the chaos and bloodshed that Sidious had unleashed decades ago—

A woman with fiery hair, like Mara’s but not of Mara’s lineage, holds a young child in her arms. With her stands the dubbed Sword who’d killed Mara’s murderer, another Wookiee Jedi, and others who bear lightsabers, blasters, or both, burning with steel and determination, a cleansing fire for a galaxy that wanted little of either. A man who resembles one of Rogue Squadron’s pilots stands behind Mara’s avenger, his hand resting on her shoulder. His uniform is reminiscent of the Empire, but it’s black, not green—

“The Empire of the Hand,” Anakin whispered, but Obi-Wan didn’t know what the hell that meant—

A young woman stands in blowing desert sands, but it isn’t Tatooine. It’s somewhere even more remote, more terrible, and she’s been alone for a very long time. Then fate brings her to the forest, to the stone Temple, the very place where the vision began. Inside the temple, she finds an old one who never walked the path of the Jedi, but hears the Force clearly. Then there is a chest, a lightsaber—Anakin’s lightsaber. She touches it and visions strike her, words and glimpses that don’t make any sense, but Obi-Wan knows this. He knew what this meant, and he watched her spark of potential blossom into a vast sun in an instant.

The Force could be kind, or it could be cruel; it simply _was_. But what it gave Obi-Wan now was her name, and he whispered it, awed and so proud of someone for finding their way to a new path from a lost one: “Rey. These are your first steps.”

The transition back to the _Tatius_ was just as abrupt as their departure. Obi-Wan realized his hand hurt terribly and glanced down. “Rex! Rex, you need to let go, I can’t feel my fingers.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Rex muttered, releasing Obi-Wan’s hand before he put his other hand out and leaned against the wall. “What the fuck.”

“What the hell _happened_?” Kix asked, sounding frantic. “We’re used to some of you pulling weird Jedi shit, but not brothers, too!”

Obi-Wan rubbed at his eyes. “Cody?”

“Maybe ten seconds,” Cody told him, his eyebrows just high enough to tell Obi-Wan that he’d been quietly freaking out, counter to Kix’s louder panic. “You all just stopped in place and stared at nothing. What happened?”

“Uh—that’s complicated,” Luke tried to explain, and then rubbed at his temples. “Okay, that actually hurt.”

Obi-Wan nodded, realizing he was on the verge of a massive headache. “We’re going to be late for dinner.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Echo was the one to find an unoccupied lounge, just large enough for all of them to fit inside without feeling crowded. The moment the door sealed behind them, Kix yelled, “What in the entire _hell_ was that?”

Rex was pressing his fingertips against his brow, hunting down pressure points that Obi-Wan and Anakin had taught to any clone willing to listen. Some of the lessons were about self-defense of external threats; others had focused on internal ones. “Fucking confusing, that’s what it was.”

Anakin sat down on a chair, resting his chin on his clasped hands. “It felt like a true-seeing, but it can’t be.”

Ahsoka looked at Mara in sympathy. “I wonder who decided you needed to die.”

Luke bit his lip before answering. “Family. My family.”

“And you weren’t an enemy, you were a Jedi,” Echo pointed out. “Someone had definitely lost their shit in a bad way.”

“Luke?” Obi-Wan gazed at his nephew in concern. “What is it?”

“In both of those…possibilities, Han’s eldest son killed someone we care for. Those were two entirely different men, and they both just…is our line cursed?” Luke asked in a faint voice.

“No!” Anakin exclaimed at once. “I don’t care what people think of the Vader shit. That has nothing to do with who our family was—we were traders! We were merchant families who controlled the trade routes before the fucking Trade Federation came along and established that damned monopoly. Also, there’s the Naboo part, where you and your sister come from a long line of righteous busybodies who are very good at convincing people not to be assholes.”

Luke stared at his father in bewilderment. “I…think I’m flattered?”

Cody was leveling a stone cold glare at Anakin. “Vader,” he repeated.

Anakin sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “Shit. This is really not how I wanted that particular landmine of a conversation to happen.”

“Why the hell hasn’t Rex shot you yet?” Cody ground out.

Rex glanced at Cody without lifting his head. “Extenuating circumstances.”

“Extenuating—what kind of _extenuating circumstances_ excuse Darth fucking Vader?” Cody yelled.

Echo flinched and rubbed his ear. “Man, I hope this lounge is sound-proof.”

“No choice, Cody,” Kix said, staring down at the floor. “Just like Sixty-Six and the chips.”

Jesse was looking around the room like everyone had lost their minds. “Is this what you were babbling about on Wivvelinnt II?” he asked Kix. “I seem to remember something about you wanting to murder the shit out of the Emperor.”

“Yeah. I figured part of it out just after Fives spoke to me, when I was in the middle of telling Rex to find his stupid ass.” Kix leaned back in his seat in a tired slump. “The other part was the chips. Found that out when Boil accidentally activated mine.”

Rex dropped his hand and gave Kix a wide-eyed look of disbelief. “They did what—how the _hell_ did you live through that?”

“Uh—well, Eel was there,” Kix said, “and he knew about the thing you guys had done on Kamino.” Kix glanced at Anakin. “Focusing on you made the chip shut up.”

Anakin reared back like he’d just been struck. “But Sifo-Dyas put in that order before Naboo even happened! When the first batches of chips were implanted, I was _nine years old_!”

“Sidious is exceptionally precognitive, and he plays a very, very long game,” Obi-Wan said. “He knew his chosen tool was out there. It was just a matter of when.”

 Angry tears formed and fell from Anakin’s eyes before he wiped his face dry. “I am not a fucking tool.”

“No, you’re not,” Obi-Wan said quietly, and then looked at Cody. “Which is why the Emperor literally had to break his mind in order to create Vader.”

“Break? Break how?” Cody asked.

Obi-Wan glanced at Anakin before answering. “Do you remember what I told you about Lifebonds, when you asked?”

Cody’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. You said that shit was terrible and nobody should ever do it, since a broken Lifebond killed you or it made you completely fuckin’ nuts.” He paused, his expression shifting towards horror. “Okay. Now I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Join the club,” Anakin murmured.

Cody looked at Echo, Jesse, Kix, and Mara. “How the hell are you lot taking this so calmly?”

Kix just shrugged. “Already knew, already sped through horror and vomiting and right into wanting to murder a dead fucking bastard.”

Mara looked irritated. “I’ve had time to get used to certain ideas.”

“It makes horrible sense, in retrospect,” Echo said. “Also, I’m pretty sure I’m still a bit, uh, baffled.”

“Yeah. I just had the weirdest fucking experience of my _life_ , Cody,” Jesse added, rubbing his face with both hands. “It makes sense, it’s horrible, and also, visions, what in the entire _fuck_!”

Kix stared at Cody. “Same question back, sir—how are _you_ taking the Vader thing so calmly?”

Cody grimaced. “I tried to kill him, _and_ him,” he said, pointing at Obi-Wan and Rex respectively. “And I probably killed a hell of a lot more people who didn’t deserve it when there was still a functioning chip screaming in my head. Not a lot of ground for me to stand on in the not-murdering people department, especially if the situation’s so similar.”

“This is depressing. Let’s go back to the confusing visions part,” Jesse said.

Luke smiled. “I have no idea what half of this conversation is about, so I am happy to go back to that subject.”

“Please at least summarize this for the two people who did not get whisked along on your magical joy-ride,” Cody said.

Jesse scowled. “Everyone murdered each other. The end."

“We were presented with three different possibilities, three different branches of possible futures,” Ahsoka explained. “Though on reflection, I don’t think we saw anything from the third possibility. Just the other two.”

“I have a theory.” Obi-Wan closed his eyes so that he could pull the words forth, exactly as Qui-Gon had spoken them: “The _original_ prophecy of the Chosen One. It’s so important to this era that it’s as if it is written into time.”

“Not that, not again,” Anakin said in a flat voice.

“Unfortunately, that is something that is still in play in _every_ branch of possibility,” Obi-Wan replied. “Ulic Qel-Droma said that we live in an era of great change, that there are prophecies attached to mine and Anakin’s line for the next century.”

“I hate that—it’s bantha shit!” Anakin clamped his hand down on the arm of his chair and succeeded in snapping it off. “And…that is also bad. Shit,” he said, holding up the molded plastic. “I wonder if they have really _good_ glue on this ship.”

“Just do what we used to do and hide the evidence,” Echo suggested.

Obi-Wan smiled. “I still don’t want to know.”

“Prophecies, plural?” Ahsoka asked.

“Artoo found a scrap of another ancient prophecy in the Obroa-Skai Library. ‘ _In the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns,’”_ Anakin quoted. “No idea what it means…”

Anakin met Obi-Wan’s eyes before they both turned and looked at Luke. “Never mind,” Anakin said.

“Great,” Luke said dryly. “Even I can interpret that one.”

“Congratulations, you fulfilled a prophecy.” Anakin suddenly looked tired. “We just don’t get trophies for that.”

Luke pinched the bridge of his nose while grimacing. “Hurray?”

Ahsoka frowned and looked at Obi-Wan. “But you can’t have children. How are prophecies supposed to follow kids that don’t exist?”

“We have a sister in our timeline,” Anakin answered, which meant Obi-Wan didn’t have to mention that yes, he did have a child for potential prophecies to take an interest in. “And we’re saving that for the long story explanation, okay?”

Mara looked like she was ready to chew through steel over the idea that she had to be grateful to Anakin for anything. “That’s _this_ time, though! I’m not in the mood for any of your ill-conceived descendants to stab me with a blasted lightsaber!”

“Mara,” Obi-Wan said, waving her down. She glowered at him, but quieted. “I think I know what’s going on now.” He thought about it for a moment before crafting an illusion in his cupped hands. It caught everyone’s attention, all of them leaning forward to get a closer look at the ball of blue light. It was composed of a multitude of threads crushed together in an unnavigable mess.

“Pretty,” Jesse said.

Ahsoka glanced at him. “You’re not surprised he knows how to do this?”

Jesse shrugged. “Nope. Got to see the Pernellian Campaign’s majestic end.”

“Big kriffing illusions,” Kix added.

“Dumbass Jedi General passing out on the bridge,” Cody growled the reminder.

Rex eyed Cody. “Drunken commander of 7th Sky in my berth.”

Obi-Wan gave them an amused look. “We’re digressing. It starts with a simple truth—there is no time.”

“How can there be no time? We experience it.” Ahsoka’s tone was that of the curious student, not disbelief.

“More specifically, everything is happening all at once. What creates the concept of time is our ability to discern moments in the order that they actually happen.” Obi-Wan spread his hands; the compressed ball stretched into a lengthened column, revealing a clearer view of the threads. There were so many that it was hard to see that it was not a solid block he’d formed, but a maze of expanding branches that flowed from one to another. “The idea that there is no time is a cornerstone of certain branches of mathematics, as well as Temporal Physics.”

“Temporal Physics is something that is actually taught?” Luke asked in disbelief. Mara’s eye twitched, which meant she felt the same way.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes. “I seriously fucking hate Imperial schooling.”

Anakin’s brow furrowed. “This still sounds a hell of a lot more advanced than any class I ever took on the subject.”

Ahsoka smiled. “This is what _I_ get for never taking it at all.”

“I did suggest it.” Obi-Wan smiled at her to take any potential sting out of his words. “Temporal physics is thus: we know of the progression of time because we see and experience it. We follow the threads,” he nodded at the illusion, “as they happen, and instead of everything happening at once in a meaningless jumble, events happen as we perceive them.

“I’ve had a few lessons from those who are outside the flow of perceived time, those who can look at the threads from a different point of view.”

“Different point of view in this case being people who are already dead,” Luke guessed. “Yoda?”

“Yoda does not play with threads because he knows what he would be tempted to do, and so he avoids that temptation entirely,” Obi-Wan replied. “In the meantime, say that this column represents the particular progression of events until the Battle of Endor.”

While the others watched, Obi-Wan shifted the illusion. The column remained solid up until a certain point; then it split into two separate lines. “From what that vision showed us, Endor originally had two primary paths that would result from those events. What some of us just witnessed were bits and pieces of events from both of those timelines.”

“But that isn’t true anymore,” Luke said at once. “There was a third line of possibility.”

Obi-Wan nodded in acknowledgement. “That’s why I said originally. When Anakin and I were unwillingly forced back into this timeline without so much as a damned by-your-leave, it broke a few things, and a hell of a lot of rules. When dealing with time, you have to keep in mind that things aren’t meant to be wedged into places where they don’t belong, or where they no longer belong. While you can shift things or people back in time, or into other timelines, or in ways that _create_ other timelines, you have to adjust the weave of the Force so that they’ll fit in that new time and place. Otherwise…”

“A. Full. Year. Of. Migraines,” Anakin bit out. “That was not fun.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Emmaltine, in her utter lack of wisdom, shoved us into place about a year before Endor. That’s the crack, the old break that Ahsoka discerned at the beginning of the vision. I think we fell into it because of the way I scrambled everything from, ah, being a guest of the Adepts.”

Rex glared at him. “That was not your fault.”

“I’m aware,” Obi-Wan replied, still attempting to make himself believe it. “That still doesn’t change the fact that it happened—no wait, stop. Now I’m the one digressing.”

Obi-Wan altered the illusion once more. Now instead of two possibilities that branched out from Endor, there was a third between them, with its divergence point further back along the column. “Our arrival created that third potential outcome. That mist, that possibility—we’re about to run smack into it this evening.”

“The vote,” Ahsoka realized. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. Nothing bad, nothing dangerous. Just something _different,_ ” he emphasized, frowning. “Something that, without Emmaltine’s interference, probably wouldn’t have happened. Or perhaps it was always going to happen, and it’s merely the events afterwards that change.”

“Okay. Fine.” Mara pressed her lips together before she spoke again. “Which one of these three strands is the real one?”

Obi-Wan wanted to sigh, but it was a valid question. “Mara. All three of these timelines are the real timeline. There is no incorrect timeline. They are all valid; they’re all _happening_ , right now, alongside our third created timeline.”

“Hooo.” Jesse let out a soft whistle. “And here I thought the fucking vision was weird enough.”

Echo was staring at the glowing threads. “I really want to find every single book in existence on temporal theory _yesterday._ ”

Anakin’s eyes lit up. “I get it. Time has become a three-fold path. Like the Prophecy—the influence. It has to be the one making the three, which will eventually again make the one.”

“That makes no damned sense at all,” Mara growled.

“Time doesn’t exist. Time is perception, “Obi-Wan reminded her gently. “Other people in those other paths are experiencing moments that they can translate into linear events, and that makes their experiences just as real as what we’re doing right now.”

“So we’re now in the third ‘real’ possibility,” Ahsoka mused. “What we saw in those other two outcomes—that won’t happen here.”

“If it does, it won’t be the same way,” Obi-Wan confirmed. “Our perceptions, our experiences, are already different from theirs.”

Anakin gave him a hopeful look. “Does this help us get home?”

Obi-Wan regarded the shining threads he’d created, trying not to feel guilty about how the idea of their leaving again was affecting the others. “I don’t know, Anakin. It’s useful information to have, regardless. I like knowing what the hell is going on.”

“Same,” Luke agreed with a tiny smile.

“So, what about that ‘making the one again’ thing?” Kix asked.

Obi-Wan stretched the column of threads out even further. “Look here.” He pointed to a place much further back from the Endor split, revealing a place where the column had, much more subtly, also split in two, though that second branch hadn’t rejoined the column yet. “This is the branch that happened because of the new perceptions that Anakin and I brought to that point in time. One day, events will become similar enough that this branch will twine itself back into the primary line, just as one day, these three different paths from Endor will have events that coincide to a point where they become a single column in the multitudes of possibility again. That’s how perception of time works. That’s quantum physics in a nutshell, really.”

“What’s on your mind, Luke?” Anakin asked, seeing the pensive expression on his son’s face.

“In both of those possibilities, I watched my students die. Some all at once; some lost to that horrific war against those religious fanatics. I wasn’t—I’m not ready to be the kind of leader those Jedi will need. I was just thinking that I’m glad you’re here, even if it broke something,” Luke said, glancing at Obi-Wan and Anakin in an expression of such heart-breaking relief that it made it hard to breathe.

Ahsoka’s eyes were darting along the crafted illusion. “To return to where you came from, you’d have to go from our current branch to this secondary branch,” she said, indicating each in turn. “Now to then. Each of those individual threads within the column is a potential fork in reality, right?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Typically, yes.”

“Then not only are you concerned about going back in time, you have to hit the right _part_ of time. You have to go back to that same moment, or a moment before that, one that your _perceptions_ already know of so that it doesn’t change what comes right afterwards.”

“Exactly.” Obi-Wan let the illusion fade, smiling at his grand-Padawan with a deep sense of pride in her abilities. “I know there is a way. I know that we _find_ it, but I’d rather worry about what’s coming today, first.”

“Agreed.” Ahsoka huffed out a breath. “I wasn’t nervous before, and now I am.”

“I really expected the vote to be boring as hell,” Rex said. “Now I’m going to be too busy trying to figure out what’s supposed to be so fuckin’ important that it causes that kind of change.”

“I’m just waiting for Provision 201,” Cody said in a low voice. “That’s it. The rest of it can go hang. If something catastrophic happens, someone can summarize that shit for me later.”

“I’m not—I’m not going to join you,” Mara announced, as if expecting to be shouted at. “I’m sorry, I know that it’s a big deal for you all, but it’s—”

“It’s fine, Mara,” Obi-Wan interrupted, before his Padawan could actually talk herself into a minor panic. “We understand. We’ll see you after it’s done and over with, all right?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s—” To Obi-Wan’s surprise, Mara darted forward and hugged him before leaving the room.

“What’s the excuse we’re going to give for being forty minutes late for food?” Echo asked after glancing at the chrono on the wall.

“Shared vision, temporal physics, and guesswork,” Anakin answered him.

“Oh, that’ll go over well,” Kix said.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “Let’s just go. They can’t interrogate us if we’re busy chewing on something.” He took in Jesse’s expression. “Rex, your former regimental commander is actually turning colors in what looks like a concerted effort _not_ to say anything about chewing on things.”

Cody’s eyes lit up. “Spit it out, Jesse.”

“Ohthatisnotfair,” Jesse blurted, turning a sentence into a single word. “Kix says I’m not allowed to say anything, or salt. Salt, guys. Evil boyfriend, behaving myself, et cetera.”

“Kix, I need you to stick close to me, because I am going to _kill_ Eel,” Rex growled. “You can revive him once I’m done killing him.”

“Eel, uh, told everybody. Loudly.” Kix winced when Rex glared at him. “To be fair? Slick guessed—Force knows how, seriously—Boil is pissed off because he didn’t see it, and I knew already?”

Jesse was grinning at them. “Same!”

Ahsoka plastered her hands over her face. “Guys, I am forty-three years old, and I still do not want to be hearing any of this!”

Luke was giving them a speculative look. “See, I’m not sure if I should be offering some form of congratulations, or if I should tell you to run, because the moment the Rogues get ahold of this…”

Obi-Wan’s expression went flat. “Let’s just tell the gossipmongers that I’m married. It’s not even a lie.”

“Thought it wasn’t that kind of marriage,” Rex teased him.

Obi-Wan turned and gave Rex a lopsided smile. “Don’t start, _Sima’laicee Tanno’baijii._ ”

“I’m fuckin’ leaving,” Cody declared, and stalked out of the room.

“Dinner?” Obi-Wan asked the others in an innocent voice.

“My grand-Master is evil,” Ahsoka complained as they all left the lounge.

“No, your great-great-grandmaster was evil,” Obi-Wan countered.

“Or possibly just really fucking stupid,” Anakin said, which made Ahsoka laugh. The moment she’d drifted forward to walk next to Echo, Anakin nudged Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

“The things you were just telling us about time sounded a lot similar to what you were babbling about after the spice-Shillanis incident.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan pretended to be enamored of the view in front of him, which was an inglorious passage of steel gray ship’s corridor.

“You know. _‘There is no time, there is no when, there is no will be, and there is no ever was.’_ That stuff.” Anakin paused. “You said you were remembering.”

“And I was correct,” Obi-Wan said. “It was something I learned some years ago, but I happened to be running a high fever at the time, so it was just floating around in my subconscious.”

“Huh.” Anakin drew out the silence for a few minutes before he finally asked, “Who told you that?”

Obi-Wan glanced up at him and saw nothing more than baffled curiosity. “Your other Master, Padawan.”

Anakin’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

“Indeed.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

The commissary was only half-full when they arrived. A batch of pilots were lording over several tables clustered together. The white-haired lady they’d rescued from that ex-Imp base, Targeter, was sitting with one of the pilots, their shoulders pressed companionably together. Some of the _Tatius’s_ crew were still eating, or lining up for a late meal. Lylek Squad had conquered the hall by claiming a table more than large enough to accommodate all of them, Tano, both Skywalkers, and their white-haired friend included. Echo wondered what his name was. Actually, Echo wondered what the man even _looked_ like, since he spent all of his time staring at either a tabletop or a floor. Poor bastard must’ve had a rough month.

“What the hell took you assholes so long?” Slick yelled the moment he saw them.

Echo tilted his head and regarded his idiot betrothed…whatever term it was. There was probably something more accurate than fiancé, but he couldn’t think of it right now. “Weren’t you waiting for me to come and rescue your ass from Medical?”

Slick pointed at him with one of the braces he must have used to support his weight for the walk to the commissary. “You took too fucking long. Staged a jailbreak, pissed off a Gand.”

Echo nodded, unsurprised. Slick had no patience even on good days. “You okay?”

Slick lifted one shoulder in a shrug, pointing down at his leg. He was wearing someone else’s trousers, ones with no holes and no damned blood on them. The cuff was rolled up on the right side, revealing reddened but at least whole skin, capped by one of the devices that protected the end of a limb from further nerve damage until prosthetics were an option. “Still kind of deaf, but I’m fine—stop changing the fucking subject. Why do half of you look like you’re nervous, and the other half of you look like you’ve seen at least half a dozen ghosts?”

“Just the one, so far,” Rex muttered, which made no sense. Echo was counting two ghosts, even if they weren’t currently dead.

Jesse pulled out a chair and slumped down into it without bothering to find food, which pretty well matched how Echo felt. “All of those old jokes about midichlorian injections and roaming midichlorians just stopped being funny.”

Boil waved at them with his fork as they all sat down. “Y’know, food is actually a really decent idea. I’ve put down two meals and it still hasn’t made up for tearing our way across this sector in the past few days, killing the shit out of every shiny white bit of armor we could find.”

“Food,” General Skywalker echoed. “Yeah, maybe in a little while.”

Commander Tano propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. “Maybe when things start making sense again.”

Kix stared at her, aghast. “You can’t do that. We’d all kriffing _starve_!”

“Kix has a point,” General Kenobi noted.

“I don’t see you eating,” Rex retorted. Kenobi just shrugged in response.

Echo sighed a little. He was stuck somewhere between “weird vision” and “would like to stop calling these people by ranks they no longer have, thank you, stupid hard-wired brain,” but it was the second part that was starting to get frustrating. Eel was right—this wasn’t the GAR, and he wasn’t under those obligations anymore. He’d revisit that if it turned out that his old COs held rank in the Alliance, but dammit, not until then!

Slick nudged him and gestured just in time for Echo to see the scowl on Wolffe’s face. “You shaved the fucking beard.”

Rex glanced at Wolffe. “Yeah?” It didn’t escape Echo’s notice that Cody had all but shoved General Skywalker out of the way so he could watch.

“Tano and I have been after you for twenty fucking years to mow that shit off your face,” Wolffe growled. “And _now_ you do it?”

Rex finally lost some of the shock that had been dogging him since the Force had decided their lives weren’t strange enough. “And the entire reason I did is because of the look on _your_ face right now.”

Wolffe shook his head in disgust. “Your dead boyfriend is a bad influence,” he said, which brought predatory grins to way too many faces.

Kenobi tilted his head so he could look down the table. “Eel, really. Was that called for?”

Eel laughed. “Well, at the time, you were supposed to be, oh, _dead_. It was meant to be a hell of an opportunity to mock Rex relentlessly.”

“That backfired,” Kix said.

“Backfired? Pfft.” Eel grinned at them. “No way. Now we get to mock both of them!”

“Eel!” Rex snapped. “You seem to be really unfamiliar with the definition of discretion!”

Obi-Wan was chuckling. “Rex, it’s fine. However, Commodore?” He gave Eel a look that had always seemed mild and unassuming at first glance, but never truly was. “Not tonight, please.”

Eel nodded. “Sure. Not like I can’t do it until the day I die once the chrono rolls back over to zero-hundred hours, anyway.”

Click glanced back and forth. “Does everyone always insist on never talking sense, ever? I mean, I kind of get the mindset, but once every five minutes or so would be a nice average.”

“What the entire fuck happened?” Pulsar asked bluntly.

“Uh—” Skywalker tried, but Tano beat him to it.

“Temporal physics review and theorization after discovering a crack in the weave of the Force that precipitated a vision, which pulled a few more of us along for the ride than would originally be expected,” she recited.

“That is a hell of a lot more complicated than what we agreed on,” Skywalker said, miffed.

Tano smiled at him. “You both have the very bad habit of using too many words, or too few.”

Slick was looking at Echo from the corner of his eye. “You?”

Echo nodded. “Yeah.”

Either Slick was in a good mood, or the medics gave him some _really_ powerful drugs. “Huh. So how was your ride on a different level of insanity?”

“We wouldn’t have found him.”

“What?” Echo suddenly had everyone’s attention, possibly because he had also clamped his hand down on the table hard enough for it to make ominous cracking sounds. He made himself let go; Skywalker had already broken a chair, and that was probably enough for the day. “The hell are you talking about?” Lichen asked, frowning.

Echo twirled his fingers in the air, trying to find words that wouldn’t be useless to everyone, not just Click. “Some stupid wench of a dead woman—”

“Emmaltine,” Kenobi supplied. “Daughter.”

Boil rolled his eyes. “Oh, good, it starts with disappearing planet fallout. That’s always a great sign.”

Echo pointed at Kenobi and Skywalker, who were sitting across from each other. “She dumped these two not-dead Jedi back into our timeline, and she did it wrong, and it changed—” Echo had to pause, because the idea was galling, and really pissing him the hell off. “If it hadn’t happened that way, we wouldn’t have found Kix. We wouldn’t have found Jesse and his team, considering that Kix is the reason that happened, too. I doubt we would have seen Rex, Wolffe, Tano, or Cody again, either.”

“Oh,” Numa murmured. “I see.”

“Yeah, that’s probably true enough on my end,” Cody said. “I was busy drinking myself to death before I got wind of a Walking Disaster where he wasn’t supposed to be.”

“Without Lothal’s successful rebellion—no, we wouldn’t have been there,” Tano agreed thoughtfully. “And it was that rebellion, along with the interference from the Adepts, that meant we met all of you again.”

Jesse was giving Echo an angry stare. “How do you know that about Kix?”

“There was a flash during part of it. I guess I noticed because I’m always looking for us.” Echo glanced at the ceiling, where the lighting forced his bionic right eye to compensate for the sudden brightness with a speed his other eye couldn’t keep up with. “Someone found the _Marimbanni_ , but it wasn’t 5238. Think it was more like 5268,” he said, and Kix went pale.

“Shit, Kix, you think we’re old now,” Boil said, cracking a smile. “You’d _really_ be the shiniest of us!”

Kix glared at him. “Please shut the hell up, Boil.”

“If any of us would even still be alive at that point.” Echo glanced over in surprise. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d heard Eel sound that bitter, that fucking _depressed._

Numa rested her hand on Eel’s arm. “What is it?”

Eel blinked a few times before looking at them, his eyes red-rimmed. “There isn’t much of a gap between the generations, right?”

“Nah, not really.” Cody was frowning, but he answered the question. “The One Hundred were first, the original ARC lineup. Then first-gen, second-gen, third-gen—about a month between those sets. Another gap of about two or three months, then the Kaminoans created fourth-gen and fifth-gen. After that, it was more or less a steady gap of about two weeks between each generation of brothers until the Republic collapsed.”

“Yeah.” Eel pressed his lips together. “And three of you are second-gen, I’m third-gen…” He drew in a breath. “I didn’t tell anyone, because I didn’t know how to break that kind of news. Dogma didn’t even want to fucking _talk_ about it. Cut was first-gen, and he died of cancer about a year ago.”

There was a long, too-quiet silence before Slick asked, “The fuck is cancer?”

Kix was resting his head in both hands. “Malignant cellular mutation and degeneration.”

“Oh. Great,” Pulsar muttered.

“So, what you’re saying is that if we can avoid being shot by Imps and try not to keel over from heart failure caused by the stress of the last twenty-eight fucking years, we can look forward to dying from something that sounds really fucking unpleasant.” Boil glanced at Kix. “You’re not allowed to bitch at me about my tabac habit anymore.”

Kix lowered his hands. “Oh, so you’d like to speed up the potential cancer, then? Don’t be a kriffing idiot, _vod_. Hey, does anyone know where the Kaminoans went? I think I’ve decided I’m adding them to my murder-list, and I gotta say, for only being awake three months? It’s getting kinda long.”

Pulsar snorted. “Well, the Noghri really like you, so if you ever wanted help, they’d probably beg to volunteer.”

“Wait. The same Noghri who were just clinging to my legs and hands, purring like happy pack animals?” Luke asked, startled.

“Yeah, they do that, too,” Pulsar said. “Be glad they didn’t all decide to tackle you at once and sit on you.”

Whatever reply anyone might have made was held up by Captain Ghulam approaching their table. “Gentlebeings.” He paused, glancing around them. “I’ve seen happier expressions at actual funerals.”

“We just found out we missed one by about a year,” Boil said in response.

Ghulam inclined his head. “Then I’m sorry for the flippancy, and apologize for having to rush your meal, but the kitchen staff is about to start packing away part of the commissary to make room for the viewing of the vote in an hour’s time. If you haven’t made it to the line yet, I strongly suggest you do so now.”

Tano pushed herself away from the table. “That is all the invitation I need, Captain.”

“Mm. Yes, thank you, Arram,” Kenobi said.

Ghulam paused in the middle of turning to walk away. “I’m—I’m sorry, are you _ill_?”

“No, just upset.” Kenobi stood up to follow Tano. “Very upset.”

Echo shrugged and followed them. There was nothing else to do at the moment, and it wasn’t like getting food kept him from thinking.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Obi-Wan snagged the edge of Kix’s jacket, his fingers feeling the texture of flexible armor plating within the cloth. _Nice_ , he thought, and then tugged. “Kix,” he said, when the man glanced at him in surprise. “A word, please?”

“People keep absconding with my boyfriend,” Jesse grumbled.

“I promise, I will return him promptly.”

“Sure. But if you two don’t hurry the hell up, dinner will actually disappear, and I’m not listening to him bitch about ration bars all night.” Jesse snagged a tray before joining some of Fym’s late-arriving crew members.

“What is it, sir?” Kix asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “It isn’t sir. I’m not your General anymore.”

Kix’s smile was sad, his eyes too moist. “It’s only been three months since I’ve seen you guys, so yes, you’re still my General. So is General Skywalker. Tano’s still my Commander.”

“Fair enough,” Obi-Wan granted him. He knew full well how disorienting it was to wake up in the wrong time. “Something is on your mind, and I think it’s related to Cut’s unfortunate passing.”

“Yeah, it is.” Kix rubbed at his jaw. “It’s…see, once I woke up and things made no kriffing sense, I started reading. History at first, trying to catch up, but I gave up on that when I discovered it wasn’t just one Death Star, oh, no. The Empire had to go and build _two_ Death Stars. That didn’t make any kriffing sense, either, so I switched over to medical updates.”

Obi-Wan followed Kix’s gaze, which was fixed on his brothers still sitting at their claimed table. “Tell me?”

“The double-aging. I haven’t said a word to them, but I found out that there is someone who can—he’s got a documented track record of being able to repair gene sequence damage. He also dabbles in genetic design, and as much as I think most of his experiments in that department are kriffing foul, they’re also documented successes.”

“You want to see if he can halt the accelerated aging,” Obi-Wan said, and Kix nodded. “But there’s a problem.”

“Money.” Kix crossed his arms, his fingers resting over the scuffed white vambrace on his right arm, one still bearing swaths of 501st blue. “The old bastard reserves his work for the wealthy. We get paid well doing insane SpecOps work, but it’s nowhere near the kind of money this asshole charges.”

“Ah, that type,” Obi-Wan said. “The sort of medical professional who doesn’t price his work until he’s taken in his first fee, then he’ll grant you a short window of time to catch his interest. Core World greed. It used to be common practice on Coruscant, even before the war.”

“He was originally from there, too, but he relocated to the Mid-Rim. If the money magically showed up tomorrow, it’d be easier to get to him now than it would be if he was still hanging out on a planet drowning in Imps,” Kix said.

“Tell me his name, and tell me where.” Obi-Wan only lifted an eyebrow when Kix gave him a suspicious look. “I want to help, and I’m not above robbing the Empire blind to make it happen.”

“Sir!” Kix blurted, appalled. “You can’t—”

“Well, it’s not like it would be the first time,” Obi-Wan said, one corner of his mouth turning up in a smile. “But Kix: for you, for your brothers? Of course I would.”

Kix was chewing on his lip as he debated. “Fine. Okay. I’ll give you his name and the world he lives on…as long as you tell me why your neurochem profile is off-the-charts insane.”

“Several years ago, I was poisoned,” Obi-Wan said. As far as prices to pay, this was a simple one.

Kix studied his face with narrowed eyes. “Is that what happened to your eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. What kind of poison?” Kix asked.

Obi-Wan paused when Rex gave him a curious look, holding up two fingers in silent request. Rex nodded and grabbed another tray. “One that created constant, unending stimulus to my limbic system, including non-stop overstimulation of the hypothalamus and the amygdala. I was running a high fever most of the time, couldn’t sleep, and was the definition of miserable.”

Kix was giving him a look of extreme displeasure. “You also would have been so kriffing pissed off that you would have barely been able to think. What kind of poison, General?”

“A Sith toxin designed to make stubborn Jedi fall to the Dark side. Fatal if you don’t cooperate with it,” Obi-Wan said, keeping his tone light. “And you’re right—it was very hard to think. For nearly three months.”

Kix’s eyes widened. “How the _hell_ did you live through that?”

“You immediately understand why I’m not fond of discussing it.”

“No shit,” Kix said, staring at him. “So you were—”

“Utterly Fallen and holding onto sanity by my fingernails,” Obi-Wan replied to the unfinished question. “No, I didn’t hurt anyone, and yes, I did almost die from it.”

Kix nodded, releasing a sigh. “That explains a lot. Has anyone been keeping an eye on that mess you’re currently calling your biochemistry?”

“No; no means to do so, Kix.” Obi-Wan pushed his hair back when some of it fell free from its tied confines. “But I do know what serotonin poisoning feels like.”

“That’s why you suggested the tarroffinial,” Kix guessed. “That sedative will also knock back serotonin levels if they’ve climbed too high.”

“And I’d just spent several days in a great deal of pain. Seemed wiser to be cautious.” Obi-Wan glanced at him. “Curiosity satisfied, CMO?”

Kix flushed and smiled. “Yeah, I guess it is. But I’m keeping an eye on your ass. When we collaborated on a nickname, you were not supposed to live and breathe being a walking disaster, sir.”

“You all should have settled on something fluffier, maybe,” Obi-Wan replied, grinning.

Kix glared at him. “And be inaccurate? That isn’t how it works!”

Obi-Wan looked back at him. “Your name is Kix,” he said, surprised when Kix’s flush turned into a full-blown blush.

“It was a nice pun and I liked it better than the original,” he said in a speedy hush.

“Oh, I can’t _wait_ to hear that story.”

“I’m not telling it; it’s still kriffing embarrassing,” Kix muttered under his breath. “Davine Jashino, Presputteri.”

Obi-Wan committed the name and planet to memory. “I look forward to meeting him.”

“With _what money_?” Kix asked again. “You’d have to see that bastard just to find out what he’d even charge!” When Obi-Wan smiled; Kix held up his hands. “Never mind. I know that smile. I’ve decided that I don’t want to kriffin’ know.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

If someone had asked Obi-Wan prior to the vote if he’d planned anything that happened during the rest of the year, he’d have told them that Lothal would join the Alliance. The Chiss were interesting (and Anakin owed him _such_ an explanation for their presence) but the Lothal had already spent so much time cut off from the rest of the galaxy. The Chiss were the ultimate mystery in a drowning ocean of the unknown. The Alliance itself would become a new Republic. Obi-Wan would be content to let them have at it while continuing his work of leaving Luke a Jedi Order that would be far more stable than its predecessor.

Before the vision swept an unexpected number of them along for an unpleasant ride, Obi-Wan had known the transition was coming, the leap that would turn the Alliance from revolutionary body to galactic government. He’d seen the founding of its basic tenets, but beyond knowing that the vote was pending, Obi-Wan hadn’t gone digging, not wishing to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. The Lothal’s guerilla war had taken up all of his attention, and he’d expected no drama except what would come from Imperial channels.

He definitely wouldn’t have expected to be viewing the proceedings far from Lothal, sitting in the commissary of a ship captained by a man he’d last known as a soldier during the Clone Wars. He really wouldn’t have guessed that he would be with Anakin, let alone Ahsoka, Luke, a hell of a lot of insane stick jockeys, and twelve clones he’d considered to be dead until very, very recently.

It had been an exceptionally odd week.

The commissary was full to bursting as every single person who could escape their evening tasks crowded into the room. Even the droids were present, since they had as much stake in this as anyone else. The chairs were all claimed, and the tables had become single-layer bleachers that held so many warm bodies it was a miracle they didn’t collapse. Obi-Wan could smell recently smoked tabac, alcohol from the open bottles and glasses being passed around, and all of the distinct scents and odors created by a multitude of species crammed into a small space. The mood was calm, bordering on celebratory. For so many of them, this was a moment they’d spent years—even actual lifetimes—working towards.

Obi-Wan had somehow been selected or bullied into taking one of the front row seats; he still wasn’t certain how that’d happened. It meant he was seated between Rex and Cody, a familiar state of affairs associated with far more good memories than bad ones. Skive Bree, Neatfreak’s daughter, had been adopted by her myriad uncles and was probably never going to escape any of them. At least she looked happy about it.

“I’m supposed to be voting in this thing,” Luke commented as the opening ceremonies began. He was sitting on a table beside them, bracketed by Anakin and Numan’arru.

“Dialing it in, huh?” Ahsoka asked from her seat on Anakin’s opposite side. Ghulam was seated in a chair just below Ahsoka; his Chitanook lieutenant was sitting on the floor in front of him, a datapad cradled in her hands. Kam was seated next to Ahsoka, his shoulders hunched in what looked like a continued state of exhaustion. He’d be recovering from Byss for weeks longer, if not months, but Obi-Wan felt it a good sign that he’d turned up to join everyone on his own.

“Luke shrugged. “I told Leia to cast my votes for me. It’s not like we disagree on any of the primary issues, and I trust her judgment on the obscure ones.”

“I can’t wait to see that girl again,” Eel said. He was grinning, fierce pride shining in his eyes.

Luke glanced at him curiously. “You know my sister?”

“Yep. Met her back when she was still a kid, just confirmed for Alderaan’s Senate seat,” Eel replied. “What were _you_ doing when you were sixteen?”

Luke’s smile was fond reminiscence. “Threading the Needle.”

“Doing what the fuck now?” Jesse asked, lifting his head to glance up at them. He was sitting on the floor with Kix, who was either paying rapt attention to the viewscreen or about to pass out sitting upright.

“He means being a crazy person,” one of the Rogues said from the next table down. If that dark-haired, dark-eyed kid wasn’t a Darklighter, Obi-Wan would eat his fucking coat.

“Gavin Darklighter, how old are you right now?” Luke asked, glancing at the kid in question. Obi-Wan bit his lip against a smile; at least he still knew the local Tatooine families by look and feel.

“Sixteen. What?” Gavin batted his eyes when Luke continued to stare at him. “I didn’t say that was a _bad_ thing, Ex-Boss.”

In a chair further down the line, Slick rubbed at his left ear. “Between everyone moving around and these assholes blabbing, I can’t hear a fucking thing they’re saying.”

“And that would be my cue,” Lieutenant Fane said, her fingernails tapping out a gentle rhythm against the datapad screen. A few moments later, text in three different languages began scrolling across the new bar at the bottom of the screen.

Slick gave Fane a surprised look. “Thanks.”

“Ten down that they go New Republic,” one of the other pilots commented.

“Please; sucker bet,” the Corellian next to her replied. His appearance was reminding Obi-Wan strongly of someone else, but he’d known a lot of Corellians over the years. That didn’t narrow it down.

“Is it wrong if I think it’s inauspicious that they’re going New Republic?” Janson asked when the name was announced as official.

Antilles glanced at the other man. “There aren’t a hell of a lot of alternatives, Wes.”

Janson scowled. “What the hell is wrong with Alliance?”

Klivian nudged Janson with his elbow. “Nothing, except for the part where the entire thing was called The Alliance to _Restore_ the Republic.”

“Details,” Jesse grumbled. He didn’t sound impressed, either.

There were only three names on the ballot aside from Mon Mothma’s for Chief-of-State. Obi-Wan had never heard of two of them, and all he remembered about Borsk Fey’lya was that he’d been a spy in his younger years.

“And Mon Mothma wins the vote for Chief-of-State, surprising absolutely no one.” There was cheering behind them at Rex’s announcement. Mon Mothma had definitely won over the majority in the past years.

“Fey’lya looks fucking pissed,” Slick noted. “Guess he expected more votes.”

“How do you know—ah. You work for Admiral Chin’weulta,” Fym said.

Numan’arru tilted her head. “I’m pretty sure that particular roll and fluff is, ‘Fuck this, and fuck all of you.’”

Boil grunted. “Sore loser.”

Obi-Wan tracked the faces on the screen more than he watched the text as member worlds were officially recognized as part of the new governing body. “This might make tomorrow interesting.”

“Maybe there will be new people to face off against instead of the Advisory Council,” Anakin said. “Hey, Iceheart’s gonna be pissed. I see at least three factions representing star systems that were supposed to be hardline Imperial until, oh, today.”

“The Advisory Council will still exist,” Luke corrected his father. “Everyone has to be voted in officially, though. I think that’s happening after the member worlds are all accepted and accounted for.”

Cody was stroking at the newer scar on his face. “Mandalore didn’t send in a rep. Guess they’re sitting it out.”

“Wren says their entire infrastructure is so Imperial, it would take explosives to fix it,” Wolffe said.

Obi-Wan glanced away, feeling a hefty amount of guilt that he more than deserved. When had he strayed too far from what was right for Mandalore, he wondered? Was it when he’d failed to stop Death Watch from murdering Satine? When he’d been forced to leave a world that had been plunged into absolute chaos? When he blithely ignored the Jedi Council referring to a _Sith_ as a personal matter, instead of a problem for the Republic as a whole? Was it the times he’d refused to press Satine when she caved to conservative politics, again and again and again, until Mandalore wasn’t even recognizable by New Mandalorian standards? Or was it even years before that, when he and Qui-Gon hadn’t fought back against that same ultra-conservative political set, allowing them to ignore Republic law and make the ancient ways of shield-brother and shield-sister illegal? Retrieving political prisoners had seemed a boon at the time, but in the long run…

“Hush, all of you.” Fym gestured at the screens that lined the commissary wall. “Voting on the Advisory Council—ah, no, it seems we’re changing the name. Voting on the new _Provisional Council_ has begun.”

Obi-Wan focused on that part of the proceedings as a welcome distraction from his thoughts. It didn’t surprise Obi-Wan that Leia Organa’s seat on the Provisional Council was confirmed by overwhelming majority. She was a talented, valued diplomat, and there was always going to be a swath of sympathy votes where Alderaan’s survivors were concerned.

Solo, however, was a surprise. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Luke grinned. “He deserves it.”

“Admiral Ackbar looks like he’s choking on a rabid cat,” Jesse said. “Guess he’s never really gotten over his feelings about smugglers.”

Kyler Bree snorted. “That man didn’t even want _us_ in the Alliance, and we weren’t smugglers, we were scavengers. My job was legal, thank you very much.”

“I don’t hear your name being mentioned,” Anakin said.

Luke smiled. “I didn’t want the job.”

Obi-Wan eyed him. “Captain Solo’s position on the Provisional Council was your idea, wasn’t it.”

Luke grinned again. “Might’ve been. Like I said, he deserved it.”

Anakin was laughing. “Oh, that’s evil. Your mother would be so proud.”

“Nah, Solo knew about it,” Rex said, his eyes on Alderaan’s senatorial box. The planet was gone, but the system remained, and its scattered citizens and survivors had a right to representation. “Senator Amidala would have figured out how to make it a surprise.”

“And ensure that he couldn’t get out of it,” Eel added.

“Leia said I wasn’t allowed to do that. Han would have shouted about it too much during a major diplomatic event,” Luke said.

Every person in the room who’d met Padmé Amidala turned and stared at Luke. “What?” Luke asked, expression bland and innocent.

“We’re keeping him,” Echo declared.

“We can’t fucking well keep everyone you happen to like!” Slick grumbled.

“Totally keeping him,” Numan’arru said, bumping fists with Echo.

“Do I get a say in this?” Luke asked.

“No,” Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Anakin said at the same time.

“Ah. Great. Now I’ve been adopted by two sets of terrifying people who used to work for my father.”

“On the same day, even,” Anakin said.

Obi-Wan was listening for it over the murmur of voices commenting on the vote, so he heard it when Luke asked, “Senator Amidala?”

Anakin nodded. “Yeah. You, uh, probably haven’t heard anything about her before.”

Luke shook his head, looking thoughtful. “Actually, Leia cites Senator Amidala as one of her role models, the reason why she started campaigning for the Imperial Senate at fifteen to earn the seat at sixteen. I don’t know what she looks like, but she seems like…she seems like she was a good person.”

Anakin closed his eyes. “She was amazing,” he whispered.

Obi-Wan swallowed hard at the grief in Anakin’s voice. It didn’t matter if Padmé was alive in the place they belonged; she was dead _here_.

Rex reached out and took Obi-Wan’s hand in a gentle grip. Obi-Wan looked at him in surprise and saw only tired grief mirrored on Rex’s face. Obi-Wan squeezed Rex’s hand, nodding briefly in gratitude and apology and gods-knew what else.

The Provisional Council’s only new addition was Solo. After that process was complete, the New Republic Senate began voting on the original protocols that had governed the Alliance for twenty-five years.

Skive was watching with wide eyes. “Wow, they’re going through this voting stuff fast. Is that normal?”

Pulsar was glowering at one of the viewscreens with his arms crossed. “No.”

“It’s weird, actually.” Ahsoka looked off-put by the speed in which every protocol was confirmed, one provision at a time. “The old Republic’s votes had always taken…er…”

“A long time. Hours to days, if not weeks,” Obi-Wan said. That same rapid progression was disconcerting to him, too, even if it was for good reasons.

“The bastards will get back to the nitpicking and bitching soon enough.” Cody looked disillusioned by the entire process, or maybe just impatient. “This has all been on the docket for years. Not much left for them to debate.”

Luke nodded. “It’ll slow down when they hit the three-hundred mark. That gets into the more finicky stuff, the newer things that are going to go into specifics for the New Republic’s standards of operation. Leia says that will mean things either get really interesting, or _extremely_ boring.”

“How many provisions are there?” Click asked, poking at a device that was covered in numerous textured buttons and switches. It looked like a crèche toy, but Click was using his fingers to toggle everything, not the Force. “And she’s wrong. This is already boring.”

“Four hundred or so, I believe,” Fym told Click.

“Four hundred eighty-three,” Luke corrected him. “They shoved in another few dozen right before the deadline for submitting final petitions and provisions.”

Lichen was grimacing. “Are we going to watch all of that? That’s a hell of a lot more about politics than I ever wanted to know.”

Cody’s eyes were tracking faces on the screen as Provisions 198 and 199 were confirmed. “I’m just here for Provision 201.”

“Same,” Wolffe grunted. “The rest of this shit’s back-of-the-feeds news reading.”

The voting progress didn’t slow down at Provision 300. Instead, Provision 201 was the first vote to be called into question.

“What. The. Entire. Fuck,” Eel grated out, incensed.

Obi-Wan felt his heart plunge into his stomach as he listened to the arguments, though he kept the reaction from his face. Vision or not, he hadn’t expected anything like _this_.

“No longer relevant—how are sentient rights no longer relevant?” Fane barked in disbelief.

“Fuck. What the fuck,” Wolffe whispered.

“Everyone’s thinking that 201 is specifically about cloned sentient rights.” Anakin was sitting ramrod straight, wartime intensity burning in his eyes as he watched politicians bicker over people’s lives.

“Which proves that they’re completely stupid,” a male Twi’lek pilot in Rogue Squadron colors said. “Do you know how many species in the galaxy rely on cloning for societal aspects, foodstuffs, or their own blasted survival?”

Skive gave him a curious look. “No?”

The Twi’lek sighed. “A lot, kiddo.”

There were a reassuring number of new Senators who stood up and called out those who were claiming that 201 was non-relevant. Leia was one of them, a fiery reflection of her father’s intensity.

Jesse raised both eyebrows. “Huh. Okay, now I really believe that’s your kid.”

Kix shoved against him. “I told you so.”

“When I was young, my father, Bail Organa, taught me the words of one of his fallen contemporaries in the old Republic Senate.” A near-hush fell over the new Senate chamber. It seemed the words of martyrs were enough to gain the attention of the squabblers. “The very thing we’re discussing now was a concern of their time, as well. Senator Amidala wrote that it was a time for treatise, for essays, for the spirit of the educated being to press words into paper and ’plast, so that the cusp they stood upon would not be forgotten.”

Leia paused, staring around the room. “What Senator Amidala then wrote is this: the lives of those who had fallen for the Republic’s safety were no less worthy than those of us who stood by. It did not matter if they were natural-born or grown in a laboratory on some distant world—those who think so fail to remember that many children considered natural-born were also conceived in laboratories for parents who could not bear children on their own. How are they any different?”

“They were all the same!” someone shouted. Obi-Wan was grinding his teeth because he couldn’t figure out who had decided to be that damned foolish.

Leia only raised an eyebrow in cool dismissal of that opinion. “My father served with these men, Senator. I have met some of the survivors who _still serve_ in the New Republic’s military forces. Believe him, and believe me—they are not all the same. They are burning individuals, and I will not stand here and see them discarded the way the old Republic and the Empire did before us.”

“Enough!” Mon Mothma’s voice rang out. She was no longer seated, but standing at the table where she and the three branch heads of the Alliance military were seated. “Senator Amidala’s words were always wise, and it grieves me still that my friend cannot be here to stand with us, but by the pantheons of the gods, were she to hear some of the things said by beings in this room—trust _me_ when I say that she would be far less poetic, far less _polite_ , in informing you of what undereducated creatures you must be.”

“Oh, that’s going to set an interesting tone for her term,” Ahsoka murmured.

“Good,” Obi-Wan said, glad his voice was clipped instead of the snarl that wanted to emerge. How fucking dare these people? How fucking _dare_ they?

“Your eyes are shiny again,” Cody told him in a low murmur. Obi-Wan cursed under his breath and attempted to calm down.

“Enough of this foolishness. The vote on Provision 201 will now be cast,” Mon Mothma ordered. “Then we will move on with the process of building the New Republic, the kind of government that all of us shall be proud to have built.”

“Nice of her to come down so firmly on our side,” Echo said thoughtfully. “Especially since people could use that against her later.”

“I don’t think the lady cares,” Boil said. “I think she’s on record as to having shouted at people maybe four times in the last twenty years.”

“Twice,” Ahsoka put in. “Only once during her Republic term. There is a reason she has held our Alliance together, after all, despite our many losses.”

After a minute of silence, Cody sat up straighter. “Good fucking gods.”

Luke was staring at the display of counted votes in dismay. “I don’t believe it.”

“We’ll be dead in twenty years!” Slick snarled. “Of course they don’t fucking care!”

Fym had a disturbed look on his face. “I hope that count turns. This will set a disturbing precedent if it does not.”

“It’s not going to pass—I don’t—” Anakin’s jaw clenched. “There aren’t enough voters left to overcome those numbers.”

“I don’t fucking believe this.” Wolffe was staring at the screen like he could murder the nay-voters with his gaze alone.

“I do,” Slick said.

“Yes, we are all aware that you’re a pessimist, do shut up!” Numan’arru snapped, glowering at the viewscreens.

 “Lieutenant Fane,” Obi-Wan said in a soft voice, catching the Chitanook’s attention.

She gave him a curious nod. “Sir?”

That was an appropriate opening, and she was entirely unaware she’d given it. “Lieutenant, my service number is AI-100-01-01, and I need a portable terminal with unrestricted access to the Alliance DataNet.”

Fane’s eyes went comically wide. “Sir!” she squeaked, and ran to do as asked.

“Did—did I hear that right?” Fym asked, almost as wide-eyed.

Slick looked incensed and insulted. “You’re my fucking _boss_?”

“No, your boss is, apparently, a pushy Bothan,” Obi-Wan countered, cold rage coiled in his chest. “I’m just a code-writer.”

“Nobody knew who AI-100-01-01 was supposed to be. No one.” Ahsoka was staring at him, which was what pretty much everyone else was doing. Only those in rows further back hadn’t heard his announcement. Fuck dammit.

“A few did. All but one of those people are dead now.” Obi-Wan swallowed and took several breaths to steady his nerves. He’d had no intention of declaring his position. Ever.

“AI-100-01-01 is _everyone’s_ boss,” Cody said. “Well. That’s a familiar position to be in.”

“The founding member of the Alliance military and Intelligence.” Antilles had gone stoic, though he was a bit pale. “Dutch used to talk about you, but he never said who you really were. Holy shit, sir.”

“Please don’t start,” Obi-Wan said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “And Dutch talked too fucking much.”

“What are you going to do?” Luke asked him without uttering a word of nonsense about Obi-Wan’s rank. Bless the stars, he loved his nephew.

“At this point, the only thing I can.” Obi-Wan felt his expression turn grim as the vote finalized at a ratio of forty-two for, sixty-eight against.

“Son of a bastard Sith Lord,” Boil muttered, a sentiment echoed in multiple forms throughout the commissary.

“Sir,” Fane said, returning with the requested terminal.

“Thank you.” Obi-Wan accepted it, glad to see that it was already powered on and connected to the ’Net.

“General?” Fym gained Obi-Wan’s attention. “Might I ask what you’re doing aboard my ship, so that I can pretend I have no idea it happened?”

“I wrote the original system that became the Alliance’s secured network,” Obi-Wan replied. “And like any good programmer should, I left myself a way in.”

Rex was giving him an odd look. “To do what? Change the numbers?”

“No. Not against a legal, binding vote.” Obi-Wan smiled as he found what he was looking for, buried far back in the history logs. Bail had been vociferously adamant about documenting all of their early work, wanting to be certain that later members of the Alliance would have the tools and evidence needed to continue the fight if the founding members died or failed.

“How many Alderaan survivors are aboard the _Tatius_?” Obi-Wan asked.

Winter gave him a surprised look. “Just myself and Tycho Celchu,” she said, gesturing at the blond man at her side. “Why?”

Obi-Wan queued the file, adding in the necessary line of code that would create a mass signal override. “I am very, very sorry, but I think making this point has to supersede all our feelings about Alderaan’s loss.”

“Shit,” Celchu said under his breath, and took Winter’s hand in a tight grip.

On the viewscreen above them, Crix Madine’s head jerked up in sudden concern. “Chief-of-State, we have a security issue,” he started to say, just before the Senate’s own primary projector was hijacked by Obi-Wan’s file.

On the viewscreen, Mon Mothma was gazing at the forming holo with an intrigued air. “Oh, that didn’t take long at all.” Madine glared at her, which she either didn’t notice or refused to acknowledge.

“What is this?” the new Naboo Senator asked, a wary look on his face.

The holo recording began before anyone could answer. It revealed a room inside Alderaan’s royal palace, one familiar enough to make Winter gasp aloud. The lounge was private, meant for the royal family and their guests. In focus were four sections of a couch set together in a broken circle, the gaps large enough for people to pass in and out of the circle.

“You’re certain about Ter Taneel?” Mon Mothma’s recorded voice asked. Seated with her was Bail Organa, Garm bel Iblis, Fang Zhar, and Queen Breha. Leaning against Breha was a robed and hooded figure whose head was lying against the Queen’s shoulder, unmoving. There were too many vacant places within that circle, seating meant for those who would never again be able to join them.

Obi-Wan glanced at Alderaan’s box and regretted the grief on so many faces, particularly Leia’s, but if shame was the only tool he had at hand, then by the Force, he was going to fucking well use it. This was a moment being forcibly played on every Alliance DataNet channel and signal, even on every personal viewscreen.

“Unfortunately,” Bail sounded grieved. “She gave the new Imperial Security Bureau nothing of our activity, and admitted to nothing, but...”

“Executed for treason, nonetheless,” Zhar said sadly.

“With no evidence!” Breha snarled. “None at all!”

“The will of the Emperor is absolute,” Bail quoted in a tired, biting tone. “We know this, dearheart.”

 “What do we do, then?” Breha asked, giving the robed figure at her side an absent pat on the shoulder.

“Remember last year, when it would have been such a terrible thing to even consider forming a new government? Being new Separatists?” Mon Mothma shook her head. “We are at that point now, Your Highness.”

“Which is why I called as many of us here as I could,” Bail said. “And…”

Senator bel Iblis looked grim. “We’re all that’s left, aren’t we?”

“Unless certain deaths have been misreported?” Bail sighed. “Yes, we are.”

“Then I guess it’s time we figure out how our rebellion should also function as a government,” bel Iblis said. “Balls. I really thought I was done with government, Bail. My only responsibility for the past year has been shooting at Imperials who try to enter Corellian space, and it’s been a fun year.”

“Not everything can come down to firepower, Garm,” Mon Mothma chided in a gentle voice. “I am in favor of including the original tenets of the Republic as part of our charter. The old, original intentions were good.”

Fang Zhar was bent with age, but no less regal as he inclined his head. “That they were. I am not opposed.”

“It is a start,” Breha admitted, her hand still on her cloaked companion’s shoulder. “It gives us a basis from which to expand, at least.”

“Our primary form is still going to be militaristic—yes, Bail, it will be, don’t give me that damned look,” bel Iblis snapped in response to Bail’s narrow-eyed stare. “Palpatine’s plans might have included the military all along, but it’s a military that we’re going to have to blasted well fight against!”

“Not the same way. Not in the same form,” Breha’s companion spoke without moving.

“I thought you were asleep,” Bail said, one corner of his mouth turning up.

“I was, until you and Garm started yelling at each other.” The cloaked form sat up and pushed his hood back, revealing an Obi-Wan Kenobi who appeared as war-ravaged as Obi-Wan himself often still felt. He’d been living rough for over a year at that point, and it showed from his unkempt grown-out hair to hollow eyes, noticeable even in the monochromatic holo.

Cody turned and glared at him. “You looked like utter shit.”

“It is nice to know that I used to look the way I feel,” Obi-Wan replied.

Eel snorted. “He looked worse by the time I found him in a bar.”

“Who found who, Commodore?”

Eel just nodded in recognition of that new bit of information. “Sir.”

“Why different?” the Senator bel Iblis in the old vid asked.

“Fuck, I just realized—he’s not at the convocation,” Antilles blurted. “Garm bel Iblis, I mean.”

Fym shook his head. “No one has seen him in several years. The Alliance is on the verge of declaring him deceased.”

“The ranks are changing,” the Obi-Wan on-screen said, his voice going rough. “The Empire is reporting vast numbers of suicides. A very quiet Outer Rim draft is in effect to fill out the new gaps in the ranks. That means Imperial fighting styles are going to be different.”

Bail frowned. “The chips—”

Obi-Wan swallowed visibly. “Apparently have a shelf life.”

“Dear gods,” Mon Mothma whispered. “Enforced murder was bad enough. To begin to consciously realize it—”

“Then I’m surprised there hasn’t been a massive military revolt,” bel Iblis said.

Obi-Wan looked grim, which didn’t do his disheveled appearance any favors at all. “Traitors get executed. Ter Taneel has learned that lesson.”

“Very well. As the Alliance’s commanding military officer, I will definitely be open to hear any suggestions you may have,” bel Iblis said.

“Wait.” Obi-Wan blinked a few times, brow furrowing. “What the hell?”

“You were the first military officer to join the Alliance, and the highest ranked,” Bail said in a patient voice. “Thus…”

“Fuck that!” Obi-Wan snapped. “Military leaders are supposed to be present and leading—”

“And what have you been doing for the past year?” Breha asked in a mild voice.

Obi-Wan snorted and leaned back against the couch, arms crossed and looking to be in the midst of a truly magnificent snit. “Fine. Garm is correct that the Alliance will primarily be a military operation for a long time yet, but if our founding principles do not include recognition of _all_ sentient rights, then there’s no fucking point to any of this.”

“My daughter is sleeping nearby, Obi-Wan,” Breha said, nudging Obi-Wan. “Please do not yet teach her language she would be prone to repeating in front of her aunts.”

Bail’s expression brightened. “No, that is an excellent idea. I’d never have to deal with those biddies again when they dropped dead from the appalling shock of it all.”

“All sentient rights.” Zhar was giving Obi-Wan a careful look. “You mean the clones, as well.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I did say all.”

“Those sentients you wish to extend full legal privileges to just helped to execute and destroy the Jedi Order,” bel Iblis said.

Obi-Wan gave bel Iblis a cold stare. “Well then, Senator. I suppose that puts me in prime position to know exactly what it’s like to be hunted down and executed merely for being what I am,” he said, and stood. “I’m going outside.”

“Don’t get caught. Or shot. Again,” Bail called after Obi-Wan, and received only a distinct Mandalorian hand gesture in response.

“The date on this,” Rex said in a low voice. “Fuck, we missed you on Alderaan by a week.”

“Sorry,” Obi-Wan murmured.

“You said that—all of that—after what happened. On Utapau,” Cody choked out.

“Of course I did,” Obi-Wan said, and caught Cody’s hand when it was blindly thrust in his direction. Cody’s fingers were like ice, pressing Obi-Wan’s fingers together in a vise-grip.

Senator be Iblis’s voice fell into the dead silence that followed holo-Obi-Wan’s departure. “Well. He is much touchier than I recall.”

“We all are,” Breha said, locking eyes with Bail. “Mon.”

“I agree with Master Kenobi.” Mon Mothma was staring down at her clasped hands. “If the man who lost everything can extend forgiveness in the face of what must have felt like the ultimate betrayal, we can do no less.”

Obi-Wan cut the vid there, before the conversation went on to naming the Alliance’s tenets—something all those serving in the New Republic knew already. He also wasn’t in the mood to view himself any longer, in the middle of unknowingly Falling, one quiet, angry step at a time.

In the New Republic Senate chamber, there was an awkward hush. Obi-Wan was viciously glad to see guilt and discomfort on so many faces, especially those whose votes he’d witnessed.

“I suggest, perhaps, that we should break for a time,” Admiral Ackbar said.

Mon Mothma shook off what looked like deep thought. “Yes, that is an excellent idea, Admiral.” She picked up a gavel and rapped it on the table three times. “This session is temporarily adjourned. We will reconvene in an hour’s time.”

Eel was wiping his face. “Dammit. There’s nothing anyone can do, is there?”

“Legally? Not right now,” Obi-Wan said, suddenly feeling as tired as his on-screen counterpart had been.

“It would have to be introduced as an entirely new petition for law,” Luke said, his eyes locked on Leia’s tearful image before the feed cut to some distant newsroom, anchored by several beings who looked shell-shocked. “With everything still due to come down the space lanes, it would be months, if not another year, before something like Provision 201 would be heard in the full Senate.”

“Bull fucking _shit_ there’s nothing to be done,” Cody growled. “I fucking _quit_!”

“Cody—” Rex began, but Cody shook his head.

“The only reason I agreed to be military again was Provision 201,” Cody ground out. “That was it—seeing to it that the Alliance gave my brothers what it had been promising them for twenty-five fucking years. They just failed to deliver. Fuck them. I’ve got better things to do.”

“Commander Antilles. Captain Ghulam,” Obi-Wan said in a soft voice. He didn’t need volume; the entire commissary was quiet, full of nothing more than the furious whispering of the recently stunned…or the recently betrayed.

“Sir?” Antilles straightened.

“General.” Fym gave him a concerned look. “What do you ask of the _Tatius’s_ crew?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “I only ask that the ranking officers for this particular mission witness that AI-100-01-01 has also decided to officially resign.”

“Hoooo,” Klivian said, while Celchu whistled. “On record in direct response to the Provision failing, sir?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Yes.” That alone might be enough to help a new petition gain ground, but Luke was correct. It would take time.

“Shit, hold on,” Slick grumbled under his breath, retrieving a chiming comm from a trouser pocket. He noted the caller, flipped the comm onto its side, and activated the projection. “Oh, it’s you,” he announced snidely as a Bothan form in an Alliance uniform appeared.

Obi-Wan glanced at Cody. _Chin’weulta_ , Cody mouthed.

“Have you seen the vote?” Chin’weulta asked, skipping any pleasantries and ignoring Slick’s greeting entirely.

Slick frowned. “Yeah, we just watched that rank pile of shit.”

“Good.” Chin’weulta’s fur rippled, a sign of agitation strong enough to be discerned by the holo pickup. “Resign. All of you. Right now.”

Slick stared at the Bothan in angry disbelief as the rest of his squad sat up and leaned around others in order to see what was going on. “You think it’s gonna be that bad, huh?”

Chin’weulta huffed, his fur rippling again. “While there are high-ranking officers in our newly dubbed New Republic who are as good as their word, like Ackbar and Madine—yes, I know Madine is an arrogant prick, but he is an _honest_ arrogant prick—there are others who are not. I’ve just lost every single legal justification I had that would keep them from ordering you to do whatever they like.”

Obi-Wan felt a chill crawl up his spine and lodge itself there, cold stealing into his limbs. This sounded horribly familiar, and for more reasons than anyone here knew. Reasons that had never gone beyond the Council Chamber doors.

“Force, I can’t fucking believe this,” Antilles murmured.

“It can’t be that bad, can it? We’ve been working with most of these men from the beginning!” Fane’s protest was echoed by the fighter squadrons and a large portion of Fym’s crew.

“It can, and I very much fear it will,” Chin’weulta answered. “It is no surprise to me that a ship captained by Arram Ghulam is manned by the sensible, but there are fools even among those who fight tyranny.”

Slick shook his head. “I have never been so glad to still be stoned out of my skull on painkillers, or you’d be talking and I’d be screaming.”

Chin’weulta peered at him. “I had wondered at the lack of high-pitched foul language.”

“Yeah.” Slick glanced at Echo, who stared back at him before nodding. The rest of Lylek Squad traded looks before either shrugging or offering their own nods. Numan’arru was the only one who didn’t, but that was also because she looked like she was a few seconds away from murdering her way through New Republic space. “Got any suggestions on anything we should do before those resignations go in, Rear Admiral?”

“That line of credit your squad has been extended? You’re going to use up all of it for a mission that will mysteriously pre-date today’s vote,” Chin’weulta said, his ears going flat. “Use _all_ of it. Try to make it look like necessary military expenditures for a mission as much as you can, but take advantage of those funds now. I’ll also be sending you a three-month bonus for completing that mysterious mission, along with what would have been this month’s wages for being insane in Imperial space.”

Boil chuckled. “Admiral, we don’t need to make something up. We just rescued a high-ranking Alliance officer from an Imperial base.”

Chin’weulta’s ears went up. “Did you really, now?”

“They mean me, Rear-Admiral,” Winter called from within the cluster of Rogues.

“Bless the gods, at least _something_ went right, then,” Chin’weulta replied. “That definitely would have warranted a full resupply, wouldn’t it?”

“After what Click did to the _Gedin'la Dinii_?” Slick nodded. “Yeah.”

“I do not even want to know. Please do send me the full details, regardless, dated for, oh, yesterday at the latest. Captain Ghulam, can I be assured that you and yours are selectively deaf in this matter?”

“Admiral, if you weren’t busy string-pulling, I’d be doing the same godsdamned thing,” Fym growled. “Nobody on my ship will say a word to Command, or I’ll toss them from an airlock.”

“Now there’s the man that inspired entire battalions with a single war cry,” Cody noted, pleased. Fym sighed and pretended to ignore him.

“Flight Marshall,” Chin’weulta said in response to Cody’s voice. “What has been your response to this?”

“Fuckin’ quit. Right before you called,” Cody said.

“Hmm. I thought you might. If you’re aware of any of your other brothers serving in the New Republic, I strongly suggest that you all advise them to do the same.”

Luke straightened. “You don’t think they’re going to be able to fix this, do you?”

Chin’weulta blinked a few times in apparent consternation. “Jedi Skywalker, I actually do believe that the politicians will be able to bludgeon Provision 201 back through into a vote that will pass as a law, but we’re all aware that it could be at least a full year before that happens. A lot can happen in a year’s time.”

“Understood.” Slick paused. “I know what’s left on that credit line. You sure you want us to blow through all of it?”

Chin’weulta’s fur rippled again before he lifted his chin. “I am, and they can try to eat it out of my furry arse if they want any of it back afterwards. _Haven_ out,” he said, and the projector clicked off.

There was another brief moment of silence before Kix yelled, “FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!”

Jesse sighed. “Yeah, that. I’m requesting my fucking back pay before I turn in an official resignation. They owe me ten years of hazard pay.”

“Oh, yes, that is a very good idea,” Kyler said. “I hadn’t thought of that; I was busy contemplating what the scrap market would be like now.”

“You don’t have to quit—” Jesse tried to say, but Kyler only snorted.

“As if I would stay after they just declared my husband to be a non-citizen. Those bastards just voided my marriage!”

“FUCK!” Eel went from morose to furious in an instant. “I didn’t even think of that. Hawniffa is going to be trying to flay people alive!”

Skive was crying, silent tears dripping down her face. “This isn’t right,” she whispered as Lichen put a reassuring arm around her shoulders.

“No, it isn’t,” Obi-Wan agreed. “But I—”

“Sir—I mean, Master Jedi,” Lieutenant Fane interrupted him. “I’m sorry, but I have an inbound call for you, bounced in from the Outer Rim.”

Outer Rim. Lothal. “Can this terminal you gave me accept that sort of call, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir,” Fane replied. “Routing it to you now.”

Obi-Wan wasn’t surprised when the image of Lothal’s newest Prime Minister appeared on the screen. “Hello, Silver,” he greeted her, holding the screen out and activating its three-dimensional feature, enabling the flatvid projected in holographic form so the others could see it.

“Ben.” Silver looked to still be in the midst of composing herself; her scarf was tied in a rush, with strands of her dark hair desperately trying to escape confinement. “Since you’re aboard an Alliance—I mean, aboard a New Republic vessel, I’m assuming you’ve witnessed today’s political catastrophe.”

“Yes. Lothal has, as well?” Obi-Wan asked, aware of the crowd pressing in closer as everyone on the _Tatius_ tried to find out what was going on.

“We have.” Silver grimaced. “Zeb Orrelios has announced that he is going to break everything he can find. I’m hoping he sticks to inanimate objects.”

“Hide your droids,” Wolffe advised Silver. “Chopper left him with some bad habits.”

“Don’t worry, Ezra is supervising,” Kanan’s voice said.

“Wait, hold on, allow me to…” The holo expanded to reveal Silver Greene, flanked by Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla, and Fitz Bret. Bret looked infuriated, and also possibly halfway to sodden drunk.

“The Lothal have made a decision based upon Provision 201’s failure,” Silver said, inclining her head as she took in the extra audience members. “To outsiders it will seem knee-jerk and reactionary, but we’ve been debating the issue of Lothal’s allegiance for several days now.”

“Lothal isn’t declaring for the Alliance,” Anakin guessed, frowning.

“No, we’re not.” Silver nodded at Hera. “Though the Lothal appreciate the assistance of the Spectre group, it is only recent Alliance assistance. Prior to the Spectres deciding _without_ Alliance approval to come to our aid, the Alliance left our people to suffer for ten years. That is not easily forgotten, nor forgiven.”

“The Chiss?” Anakin asked.

“The Chiss made a very tempting offer,” Silver replied, and then her gaze hardened. “But ultimately we have turned them down, as well. The Lothal have chosen to refuse any government oversight except our own. We’re to be neutral.”

 “Which means we have a rebirth of the Council of Neutral Systems,” Kanan said, a wry smile on his face.

Silver shook her head. “We’re hardly a Council, and there is only one of us.”

“So far,” Hera added, her eyes full of calculation and contemplation. “If Ithor doesn’t join us once they realize what we’ve done, I’ll be very surprised.”

 Silver straightened and gave Obi-Wan a direct stare. “Ben Tanno’baijii, the Lothal are calling because we wish to know our resident Jedi’s reaction to the Provision’s failure.” Then she smiled. “And to inquire as to our resident Jedi’s health.”

Obi-Wan felt a brief flare of amusement. “Your resident Jedi is not dying and is largely intact. My reaction to Provision 201’s failure was to resign my position on military record.”

“Mine, too,” Cody said gruffly. “They can find themselves another damned fool to be a Flight Marshall.”

Silver nodded, as if she expected as such, but Kanan’s head jerked up in surprise. “Master, you’re certain that’s wise?”

“Politically, it was the best sort of statement I could make in response to that utter foolishness,” Obi-Wan replied. “Kanan, your path is your own. Nothing says you should do the same.”

“Yeah, except for my conscience,” Kanan retorted. “I actually quit before Silver made this call.”

“Holy shit,” Anakin murmured. “Good man.”

“I’m sorry, Ahsoka,” Hera said, noticing Ahsoka’s presence among those crowded around. “We should have told you first—”

“Obi-Wan’s right. Your path is your own.” Ahsoka had an odd look on her face. “I was just wondering why?”

Hera’s expression turned grave. “We asked, time and time again, for Alliance assistance to eliminate the blockade around Lothal. We knew it was bad; we knew people were _suffering_ , and yet…”

“Politically, they weren’t considered useful,” Kanan said, his voice emerging in almost as low a growl as Cody’s had. “If this had been Chandrila, it would have happened the moment Tarkin died, but instead there was _nothing._ ”

“We’re both tired of feeling like our assistance has only gone to those who qualify, rather than those who are in desperate need,” Hera finished.

Obi-Wan felt a chill crawl up his spine. How often had he thought the same during the last years of the Republic, before war had eaten up all his time? Hells, how often had his Padawan voiced the same opinion?

“What they’re dancing around is that the Provision’s failure is a complete line of shit, and a lot of us are done eating that same shit,” Bret said in a harsh voice.

Silver gave Bret a quelling look. “Ben, as Prime Minister of Lothal, I say to you that the Jedi are always welcome here, no matter what government allegiance they hold. Lothal also voted, on the advice of our Jedi guests, to extend full legal rights, citizenship, and protections to any type of sentient being who wishes to reside here. That includes any cloned individual, though the decision was made with the clone members of the former Galactic Army of the Republic particularly in mind.”

“You—you declared us people. Real, legal people,” Kix whispered.

Silver smiled at him. “Yes, I believe I did say that.”

“Fuck.” Eel looked shocked. “Has _anyone_ ever done that?”

“The Alliance, but the Alliance wasn’t a formal government.” Cody glanced at Obi-Wan. “Yeah, I like these people already.”

Everything came to Obi-Wan all at once, like a cascade of potentials that he hadn’t even noticed until they revealed themselves to his eyes. “Neutrality,” he murmured in shocked realization. “Oh.”

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin sounded concerned. “What is it?”

“There is a Jedi Temple on Lothal, one that is very old,” he said, and Kanan winced. “While it does bear a certain nickname, that is not the _only_ thing it is.”

Obi-Wan gave Luke a questioning look, and his nephew smiled back. Luke was so utterly brilliant; he’d already discerned much of what Obi-Wan had just realized. “Hey, I resigned from the military months ago, and when I did it, I told them that my focus was going to be on the Jedi.”

“Neutrality,” Anakin repeated, a wave of realization spreading across his face. “Oh, wow. I can’t exactly quit the Alliance, but I am so down for this.”

“An Order that follows not a Senate, not a government, but the will of the Force.” Ahsoka looked amazed. “Oh. The way we used to be—oh, Master.”

“It’s the perfect solution,” Anakin said, wrapping one arm around Ahsoka’s shoulders. “No need to worry about being considered a traitor by one government because you helped the citizens of another.”

Kanan let out a cough, drawing their attention back to the projection. “We’re not the only Jedi.”

“Yoda did mention something about that,” Luke said.

“Yes, but he didn’t know exactly where, or he wouldn’t say,” Obi-Wan added, frowning. He had a feeling that was about to change, too.

“Ezra, uh—Ezra kind of made that search much easier.” Kanan looked proud and embarrassed at the same time. “We know the location of at least twenty people who are either Jedi, or who are already exceptionally strong in the Force.”

“Twenty-seven. There are twenty-seven of us.” Obi-Wan ran one hand over his face, feeling the sharp bite of close-cut bristle against his palm. “Holy gods.”

“Okay. I’m resigning my military commission,” Ahsoka whispered.

“Yeah. So are we,” Rex said.

“And where do you think you’re going?” Ahsoka asked him, bright-eyed.

Wolffe rolled his eyes. “With you assholes. Besides, the Spectres are family. You don’t ditch family.”

Cody let out a sudden bark of laughter. “I was resigning anyway just to follow his dumb ass and make sure he doesn’t do anything _else_ stupid,” he said, nodding at Obi-Wan. “At least now I know where the fuck I’m going.”

“And what are twenty-seven Jedi going to do with clone puppy dogs?” Slick asked in a snide voice.

“Do with—as far as I was always concerned, the army did not belong _to_ the Jedi Order. You were _part_ of the Order,” Obi-Wan said, to which Anakin and Ahsoka both nodded agreement.

Slick gave Obi-Wan a cautious look. “No shit?”

Obi-Wan smiled. _“Nayc takisir, bur’cya.”_

“Very fucking funny,” Slick grumbled.

“I meant every word.”

“ _Nera_?” Numan’arru pressed close to Boil. “What am I missing?”

Boil drew in a deep breath. “It was our fucking job, sister.”

“When we all said we belonged to the Jedi, we didn’t mean we were their property.” Eel glanced at Kix.

“Not their slaves,” Kix said in a soft voice.

“But we fought for them, and with them, and would kill the shit out of anyone who tried to fuck with them,” Jesse added.

“That is very flattering, thank you,” Kanan said dryly.

“Aw, shit,” Echo said, after looking at everyone else. “I’m gonna miss getting paid.”

Obi-Wan gave him an arch look. “Who said you wouldn’t be? The Order’s support staff was paid.”

“Not enough,” Ahsoka muttered.

“And it doesn’t have to remain that way, now does it?” Obi-Wan countered.

“With what money?” Ahsoka asked. “The Order’s accounts were claimed by the Empire.”

“Not all of them,” Obi-Wan said, and smiled at Ahsoka’s wide-eyed look of realization.

“You stole from the Empire.” Fym made a tsk-ing sound. “Naughty, naughty.”

“They stole it first,” Obi-Wan said. “Fuck them.”

“Click? Lichen? Pulsar? Numa?” Slick asked.

Click shrugged. “I still get to blow shit up, right?”

“Pretty sure that’s in the job description for anything Jedi-related,” Hera said. “At least, it certainly has been in my experience.”

Kanan grinned at her. “Hey, it was a great way to meet.”

Lichen smiled. “I go where my brothers go. Last time I went against that, I lost them, and fuck if I’m doing that again.”

“I also go where my idiot brothers go,” Numa said, elbowing Boil.

Pulsar had been staring off at nothing, but glanced at them when he realized his squad was looking in his direction. “I think if I tried to refuse, I’d get tied up and carted along, anyway. Yeah. I go where my brothers go.”

“Good, because this is complete shit. No legal protection aside from what the military _might_ provide?” Wolffe growled. “That didn’t work out so well last time.”

“I swear to you, that will never be the case for any citizen of Lothal,” Silver promised.

 “Eel, you said you were in contact with Dogma?” Eel nodded in response to Rex’s question. “Then he needs to know he just lost any legal standing he had in the Alliance because of this stupid fucking vote, if he’s not aware already.”

“He probably knows. Not sure if he has a line on any other brothers that didn’t go military,” Eel said, lacing his fingers together as he stared up at the ceiling, thinking. “I always told him not to tell me, just in case. I might know how to get a message through to anyone who stayed Imperial, though. They should get the choice, even if they just tell me to fuck off.”

“Oh, you absolute fucker!” Slick burst out, glaring at Obi-Wan. “Please stop making me like you. It’s fuckin’ irritating.”

“What? What did he do that we missed?” Cody asked.

“Oh, shit,” Anakin blurted, and then bent over howling in sudden laughter. “That was awesome!”

Luke glanced at his father before raising his hand, fingers spread. “So, what did that particular gesture mean?”

“Oh, fuck, I missed that.” Wolffe started chuckling. “You utter fucker.”

“Are they angry with you, or happy with you?” Fane asked. “Also, I am with Jedi Skywalker—what did that gesture mean?”

Cody grinned. “Tricky little bastard just told the entire New Republic Senate to go fuck themselves,” he said proudly. Anakin drew in a breath, choked, and then started laughing harder.

Obi-Wan kept a bland, innocent look on his face. “Why do only a single thing when you can accomplish multiple desired tasks at once?”

“And it’s on record. It’s on official Senate record,” Celchu said.

“Which is public record, and thus cannot be deleted,” Fym added. “I am both horrified and very, very pleased.”

Obi-Wan didn’t realize it was happening until his vision blurred. “Why the hell are you crying?” Rex asked him.

Obi-Wan had to swallow before he could speak without his voice breaking. “Because he didn’t win. The Emperor. He did his absolute best to destroy us all, and he _failed_.”

“The fuck?” Pulsar asked, giving Obi-Wan a baffled stare.

“You guys.” Obi-Wan glanced at Anakin. There was a wide smile on his face; he had one arm around Ahsoka again, and the other was draped across Luke’s shoulders. “He tried to eliminate us, but we still exist. All of us. We _exist._ ”

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Well,” Mon Mothma said, as the newly confirmed Provisional Council gathered behind closed doors. “That could have gone better.”

“How the hell did that just _happen?_ ” Jenssar SoBilles burst out, his hands waving in expressive fury.

“There were Senators who voted no on Provision 201 that I trust,” Hammana Ibari murmured, seating herself with careful grace at the table before folding her long-fingered hands on its surface. “Ithorians rely on cloning technology for the survival of our very species. They’ve all but declared that we have no rights in the New Republic.”

[They weren’t thinking of you, they were thinking of war clones,] Krithrarr growled. [Utter fools.]

“Is there anything that can be done?” Ackbar asked, eyes swiveling in the direction of the new Chief-of-State and her Minster of State.

“No,” Leia said, her gaze temporarily locking with Mon Mothma’s. Mon nodded in response to the unspoken question; yes, the old holo had been entirely legitimate.

General Rieekan sighed, looking more worn from the failed Provisional vote than Mon expected. “Not unless we wish to break the very laws we just went to the trouble of creating. Nothing can be done for months.”

“A year, if we pushed it,” Borsk Fey’lya informed them. His fur was still half-flattened in pique from losing the Chief-of-State vote, but he would rally to his position on the Provisional Council soon enough. “I’m just not certain if we should—”

“Yes, we damned well should,” Jan Dodonna snapped, glaring at the Bothan. “Do you have any idea how many war-time clones are still serving in the Alliance?”

“Not to mention the Empire,” Colonel Baern added, resting her head on her hand with a defeated look on her face. “How can the New Republic hope to be a beacon call for those men? Those who remain in the Empire believe they have no choice.”

“Or another rare chip malfunction.” General Cracken scowled. “Godsdammit. We’re going to see resignations from this, and most of our serving war veterans are high-ranking officers that the Alliance can’t afford to lose!”

[Do you think it will be that bad?] Sian Tevv asked, blinking his large black eyes as he glanced around the room.

“I ended my illustrious career in the Imperial Navy by defending and freeing a slave.” When Mon looked at him, it was to see General Solo staring down at the polished durasteel of the table, an angry set to his jaw. “The Republic treated those soldiers like slaves, and the New Republic Senate just set that same tone, all over again.”

“We’ve fought with and for these men for a quarter-century now,” Doman Beruss said, her elegant brow furrowed in concern. “Surely they would not believe the New Republic so willing to go against what the Alliance has stood for all this time.”

“The Senate just did exactly that, Councilor.” Leia had a distant look in her eyes, as if she was listening to something the others couldn’t hear. Mon felt a momentary disquiet; Luke Skywalker often had the same distinct expression. “Why wouldn’t they believe the New Republic capable of turning them back into slaves?”

[Walker of the Sky,] Krithrarr growled softly. Leia turned to face him; the Wookiee had a curious look on his face, one that reminded Mon that Krithrarr was over three hundred years old. [Princess of Alderaan. What is it that you think this means for the New Republic?]

“A diplomatic twist in the waters that none of us have planned for at all,” Leia replied.

Leia’s words were prophetic, though Mon Mothma did not yet know just what sort of prophecy they entailed. They had returned to the temporary Senate Hall in the temple; climate conditioners were working with cranky effort to keep Yavin IV’s balmy temperatures outdoors, where such heat belonged, and it added an element of noise to the proceedings that was giving her a headache.

Or perhaps it was the way that the hall had been reconfigured in light of the votes. Instead of a single long table that housed Mon Mothma and only the primary heads of the Alliance military, now there was a round table, large enough to seat herself and all members of the New Republic’s confirmed Provisional Council.

“Shit,” General Madine muttered, and passed a datapad to General Rieekan without looking in the other man’s direction.

“So it begins,” Rieekan said in a low voice, and slid the datapad over to Mon. She waited until the focus was on the Dac box, with its already-squabbling Mon Calamarian and Quarren representatives, before glancing down to read the screen.

[AI-CC-2224, Naasade, Al’verde, Flight Marshal; New Republic Intelligence: Resignation received 13:00 Galactic Standard Time.]

Mon Mothma had years of keeping her emotions to herself, and refused to flinch. One of their highest ranking officers and best field agents had resigned within thirty minutes of the vote’s failure to pass.

His resignation was not the only one they would receive that day.

[AI-CT-7567, Rex, Agent; New Republic Intelligence: Resignation received 13:01 Galactic Standard Time.]

[AI-CC-3636, Wolffe, Agent; New Republic Intelligence: Resignation received 13:02 Galactic Standard Time.]

Mon Mothma fought the urge to frown. There was no origination point for these alerts, not unless she went digging further into the records during the continuing session. Were they all in the same place, or was this a reaction shared across the entire Fleet?

[AI-100-01-19, Tano, Ahsoka, Commander; Alliance Intelligence: Resignation received 13:04 Galactic Standard Time. System Note: Provision 201 cited; Fulcrum identity confirmation codes attached and verified.]

Oh, bugger all. They’d just lost one of the Alliance’s unacknowledged Jedi.

[FC/SO-CT-88-5462-55, Click, Captain; 3rd Fleet Flight Command, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:05 Galactic Standard Time.]

“Send these alerts to everyone on the Provisional Council,” Mon told Rieekan. “Keep it up to date.”

“Chief Councilor,” Rieekan acknowledged, and sent out the command with only surreptitious looks at his datapad to accomplish the task.

Mon Mothma kept track of the reactions of the Council even as she listened to the votes proceed. They were going to hit the quibbling soon, and she needed to be ready to focus all of her attention on the mundanities of new law—no matter how important the repercussions of Provision 201’s failure happened to be.

By the time she had the chance to look at her updated datapad, the entirety of Admiral Chin’weulta’s special project, Lylek Squad, had turned in their resignations:

[AM/SO-CT-02-6687-01, Lichen, Captain; Logistics and Training Division, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:07 Galactic Standard Time.]

[AM/SO-CT-01-7771, Boil, Colonel; Sector Command, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:07 Galactic Standard Time.]

[FC/SO-CT-9791, Eel, Commodore; 3rd Fleet Flight Command, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:08 Galactic Standard Time.]

[SO-CT-6116, Kix, Major; Chief Medical Officer, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:08 Galactic Standard Time.]

[AM/SO-CT-9521, Pulsar, Lieutenant Commander; Special Forces, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:10 Galactic Standard Time.]

[SO-CT-21-0408, Echo, Major; Special Operations: Resignation received 13:10 Galactic Standard Time.]

[AM/SO-52-1114, Numan’arru, Lieutenant Colonel; Sector Command, Special Operations: Resignation received 13:11 Galactic Standard Time.]

[SO-CT-9983, Slick, Lieutenant Colonel; Special Operations Lead: Resignation received 13:12 Galactic Standard Time.]

“This is not good at all,” Rieekan murmured. “It’s not even been an hour yet, and it’s worse than I expected.”

Major Derlin pursed his lips and used the cover of applause in response to a vote’s passage to speak. “I’m all but certain one of the latest incoming resignations was presumed dead about a decade ago.” Mon glanced down at the update in question.

[AM-CT-5597, Jesse, Brigadier General; Military Reconnaissance & Evaluation: Resignation received 13:15 Galactic Standard Time.]

“Apparently, they were not as dead as thought,” Madine said, one eyebrow raised in dry amusement. “Here come the rest of his team’s resignations.”

[AM-67-4242, Bree, Kyler, Commander; Military Reconnaissance & Evaluation: Resignation received 13:16 Galactic Standard Time.]

[AM-00-0000, Bree, Skive {nee AM-CZ-889-14-1847, Neatfreak, Commander; Military Reconnaissance & Evaluation} Sergeant; Military Reconnaissance & Evaluation: Resignation received 13:15 Galactic Standard Time. System Note: No such military entity in personnel record.]

“Tiny Skive,” Jan said quietly. “Regained you and lost you on the same day. I’m so sorry, dear.”

“Oh, my gods.” Mon stared down at her datapad, the Senate temporarily forgotten.

[AI-100-01-01, Cypher, General; Alliance Intelligence: Resignation received 13:18 Galactic Standard Time. System Note: Provision 201 cited. Cypher identity confirmation codes attached and verified; resignation witnessed by Captain Arram Ghulam and Commander Wedge Antilles.]

The clones’ loss would be easily dismissed by those who’d not seen the point of granting them the legal protections they had always been promised. An unacknowledged Jedi’s identity would be contested, a single “normal” officer’s loss put down to the quibbles of fate.

The resignation of the founder of the Alliance military was not so easily ignored. That was a political statement that would send a shockwave through every branch of the New Republic’s Defense Fleet.

Fifteen more resignations came in during the next hour. Mon Mothma was not surprised that Colonel Mice Desoto’s was among them, as was Kanan Jarrus—who had actually resigned first, the transmission delayed by the distance from Yavin IV to Lothal. He was another of their unacknowledged Jedi, and it was no surprise when the rest of the Spectre team’s resignations came flooding in afterwards.

By the next morning, the New Republic had lost two hundred fifty military personnel, plus another three hundred from support staff positions. Most of them cited Provision 201 as the direct cause of their resignation.

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for SO MUCH POLITICS and horrible feels and results. Bear in mind that I wrote all of that months before the US election. It wasn't written in response to what happened, but damn, it sure looks that way now, doesn't it? Stupid orange muppet of doom.
> 
>  
> 
> *erases some text* So it seems that AO3 will take down fic for direct links even if it's just to a tumblr (I've had it happen), they're now taking down fic for INDIRECT links, and I can't mention anything anywhere? AO3, you guys might be going a bit off the deep end, here.
> 
> I have a tumblr; it is deadcatwithaflamethrower. If you get to see this message before someone working for the Archive happens along, anyway.


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